Resurrected
by EtincelleD'OR
Summary: Nothing is permament. Not even Death. Johnny Depp made it so sound easy. Love & faith are tested to the limits as they go into a war that isn't theirs, against an enemy that might even be Nyx herself. Complete :
1. Lost

_**Resurrected**_

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**Me: Like I said in my other fic, I can reimagine almost anything. So this is what I think should happen next after Tempted. **

**BTW there is background info on this and the OCs in my other fic "A Rumour in St. Petersburg", this makes more sense if you've read that.**

* * *

_Lenobia's POV_

* * *

Flames.

Beneath my riding glove, the hand on his shoulder was cold. Through that minimal touch I could feel everything. Every sob that shattered every bone in his body. His soul was broken. It would never be whole again. I exhaled firmly, stifling the sob that was rising to my throat. What right had I to cry when Dragon had just lost his soulmate? When love was pouring out of his broken heart like blood and staining the ground red?

I could barely believe the others. I scarcely expected any pupils to be at a teacher's funeral, not even vampyre fledglings. I hadn't the faith in mankind for that. Seeing Dragon's tears had stripped me of any faith I might have had left. Where were Penthesilia? Gramy? And the several others whose names I should be able to recall if I had spent a little less time with my horses and a little more time in the staff room? Kalona's spell had done more than turn them into lifeless puppets. They were probably inside teaching their classes. I was almost physically sick.

Something inside me told me I should have expected something like this. I had been exposed to death and war my entire life. My father, who was once head of the German Cavalry, might have once told me that when one goes to war, there will be death. It is inevitable. My early life in the German Army and then working for Great Britain during World War Two had made me a hard person. I was a soldier born and bred as much as I was a horsewoman, and extremely proud of it. I had seen many friends die. But this was so much worse.

To go into war and expect death is one thing. To just be thrown into a war you shouldn't even be fighting in in the first place is another. First Patricia Nolan, then Loren Blake. Now this. My gut instinct disliked Loren Blake immensely, but reasoning told me he wasn't a bad person, simply a weak one. I had my own hunches as to who had done it. The only question was why. She was sickly sweet on the outside, I was extremely glad I wasn't the only one who knew better. She even pretended to commemorate them. Another thing that confused me – Neferet would always take something that had meant a lot to the victim, it had been a bracelet of Patricia's and, Loren's broach signifying him as the Vampyre Poet Laureate, I think - and she wore it, as a way of holding their dignity high, she had said. To me it seemed like a highly strange thing to do, I had never seen any other High Priestesses do it. Quite frankly I saw it as thievery. The other thing about her bothering me was her presence – she wasn't here in body, but her aura was cast over the House of Night like a foreboding shadow. I felt proud that she was not to have anything of Anastasia's.

I clenched my jaw. Losing a soulmate was not something you could get over. Dragon's fate was a sealed one. At that moment I quite honestly believed that if Dragon stood up and asked me to go with him to Switzerland, I would have accepted. If he had asked me to impale him with a sword, and end his life, so he could be with her, I probably would have done it. I cared not that it would leave me alone here. I only wanted to end his pain. The fact that I could not was more powerlessness than I could stomach.

He was slowly dying in front of me. It wasn't a metaphor. Another one of the sections of vampyre sociology she had let slip past the fledglings. Mates, true mates, could survive solely off each other's blood, and quite little of it. Human blood was completely unnecessary, as was even vampyre blood, but after such a bond forms, it also loses almost all of its nutritional value. Rarely enough to sustain a life...

I thought of my friend. Anastasia. She was, as people had often called her as a child, an imp. Fun-loving, and kind, she brightened every room. Her control of magic, her powers, were proof that Nyx loved her too. I admired both of them. I had often thought that if any man ever loved me merely a quarter as much as Dragon loved Anastasia, I should be eternally happy, for it was more than a great majority of us manage in our incredibly long lifetimes.

I hadn't the first clue how to go about this. How can I be there for him? How can I be there for everybody? How can I make sure that this happens to no one else?

Enough.

One of Zoey's friends came to our side, wanting my company. The harder side of me wanted to scream at them to leave me, but the reasoned side, of course, repressed it. I agreed to meet them in one of the dormitories. The conversation meant very little to me, and I authorised them to take the jet and fly to San Clemente. Zoey Redbird looked at me almost sadly when I told them I would not be going. I wasn't going to leave Dragon on his own, and someone had to get this place back on its feet again. My stomach churned at practically sending a group of schoolchildren into a battle. I had to trust that it was what Nyx wanted. Erce would look after them, I hoped.

Stepping out of the girls' dormitories, the sadness of the smoke billowed across the grounds. I made my way back to Dragon, but stopped just as he came into my vision. Should I go to him? Should I leave him alone? As I stood caught in my decision I saw a large black BMW pull up at the gates. Four figures, also dressed in black, got out of the car. I immediately recognised them and took quick steps towards them. That had been quick. I had called to Europe for help, knowing full well that I needed it. The figures were friends, professors from the House of Night of Valencia, Spain, where Dragon and Anastasia had Changed ninety years ago. The driver of the car was a tall vampyre who looked Spanish in every aspect, except he had icy blue eyes. I recognised him as Dimitri Mihailov, their fencing professor. Known widely as 'the vamp who taught Dragon Lankford to fence", he had also been Anastasia's relative, rescuing her from the Bolsheviks in 1918. The next figure was a woman with long curly blonde hair, who was Adélaïde Ségaèle, Anastasia's mentor. The next was a more familiar face. A good friend of mine, the Horse Mistress of Valencia, Juliane Werner, a fellow German who had been a rider at das Landgestüt Warendorf with me many years ago. The last figure was almost regal, and I inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. It was their High Priestess, Rosalina. I greeted them as well as I could, knowing that their thoughts were already with the smoke billowing from behind the wall.

"Merry meet, High Priestess." I said, greeting her with a handshake.

"Merry meet Lenobia." She said, "The circumstances of our meeting pain me greatly."

I turned and lead them to where Dragon was still kneeling. He didn't move, or say anything, but he knew we were there.

I don't know how long we stood there. Silent. Even tears were spilling from the eyes of Dimitri Mihailov. Eventually, Rosalina found her voice.

"This must end now." She said, her voice unwavering, "Lenobia, would you be so kind?"

I nodded, and led the three females towards Neferet's office. Mihailov remained with Dragon. Closing the door behind us, I clasped my brow in frustration and gestured for them to take a seat on the sofas.

"I must know the full extent of what has transpired." Said Rosalina.

I sighed. "The entire school, except Anastasia, Dragon and myself fell under the spell of Kalona. Except for those fledglings you have no doubt heard about." I said, "A few days ago, Zoey Redbird was brought back here for healing. When healed the situation was such that she and the other fledglings had to return to the Benedictine Abbey for protection. Dragon, Anastasia and I provided the diversions for them to escape. And then..."

Rosalina nodded, I didn't need to explain the next part. "The spell of Kalona..." she said, "Is not so much that of Kalona but that of Neferet."

"I sense a terrible aura 'ere..." said Adélaïde "Zhe spell is a clever one, and it is woven into zhe school's walls. However I do believe zhat it can be countered and broken."

"Fencing and Spells & Rituals classes shall cease for the time being, in remembrance." Said Rosalina, "If Adélaïde can counter the spell, Dimitri can organise the Sons of Erebus, for now. Then they can begin teaching again in a week. I believe you requested Juliane to take your teaching load for now Lenobia, and I shall do my best to fill Neferet's role."

"I am most grateful." I said, "I only dread to think what Neferet is planning for us."

Rosalina was sympathetic. "You know better than to underestimate the Council, Lenobia." She said, "They already know that Neferet is no longer an avatar of Nyx. She will not become the next Vampyre High Priestess."

"What worries me is how she will manipulate them, magically, who she will kill, who Kalona will kill."

"It vorries us too." Said Juliane, her voice revealing her German accent, "That is vhy ve are here."

"Poor Dragon..." I muttered, "The only thing stopping him from killing himself is the knowledge that Neferet and Kalona would want just that."

"I pray it will not come to that." Said Rosalina.

* * *

The day went on more slowly than any ever before, Dragon and Mihailov were outside the entire day. It was not until Juliane and I had finished the horses just before dawn that I noticed they were no longer there. Quickly preparing a bowl of soup and pouring some wine into a glass, I dragged my feet up to Dragon's suite, and knocked on the door. No answer. Gingerly, I twisted the doorknob and let myself in. Our professors' suites were laid out like flats, one main room for eating/lounging, two bedrooms and a bathroom. I saw the door to their bedroom was open, and went in.

The sight before me was awful. Dragon was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed, a pillow, which I presumed was hers, in his lap. There was an empty shoebox at the one end, and all over the duvet were spread pictures. Photographs, some newspaper clippings, all written in Russian, letters, something that looked like a drawing. Dragon's face was tearstained, although no more tears were falling. His eyes were fixed on a photo frame in his hand.

It was their wedding photograph.

"I brought you some supper." I said, my voice drying up as I said it. I put the tray down on the bedside table, noting that he hadn't touched the wine Mihailov had given him earlier.

There was a pause. "I'm lost Lenobia..." he said, his voice shaking, "I'm nothing without her..."

I could see all his happy memories of them replaying slowly in front of his eyes. "She would want you to be brave..." I said, regretting how foolish it sounded.

"I can't..." he shook, "There is _nothing_ left."

I sat on the edge of the bed and put my hand over his, squeezing it. What could I say? I couldn't tell him it would be alright, because it wouldn't be. "I just want you to know..." I said, my eyes tearing up, "That I am your friend. I will _always_ be, and I will stand by you to the end, no matter what happens."I felt him grip my hand, the tension fading as quickly as it came about. I rubbed his shoulder. "I'll leave you alone." I said, silently getting up and heading for the door.

"Lenobia..."

I froze, turning to see him face me for the first time.

"Thank you."

I gave him a nod of understanding and respect. Leaving him alone was hard, but he needed it. On my way out, I little glint of silver caught my eye. On the coffee table in the lounge lay a blade case, the glint coming from a tiny silver key in its keyhole. An idea flashed before my eyes, one that both frightened and concerned me. I reached out to the little key, testing it with my fingers. The case was locked. Something within told me to take the little key and slip it into my pocket. I closed my eyes and tensed my brow, before pulling myself away. I left the little key in the lock.


	2. Yekaterinburg

_**Resurrected**_

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**Me: ****A little background – this fic works on the idea that Anastasia was, well, Anastasia, the Russian Grand Duchess who had supposedly survived, and is a sort of follow-on to "A Rumour in St. Petersburg". **

**Significant points:**

"**dorogoy" is the Russian word for 'sweetheart', or 'dear', and "dorogaya" is just the female version. **

"**Nastiya" is a shortened version/nickname of the name "Anastasia".**

**St Peter & Paul is the real life cathedral in St. Petersburg where the real Anastasia and her family were finally laid to rest.**

**Their remains had originally been thrown down a mineshaft in Yekaterinburg.**

* * *

"_How did you do this?"_

_No answer._

"_How did you put me here???"_

_The darkness billowed and spoke, its words like poison. "You died..." it said, only just recognisable as human, female. "You are dead."_

"_You're lying..."_

_It chuckled evilly. "Oh, but you aaaaare..." it cooed._

"_This is not the Otherworld, this is a prison!"_

"_Whooo are you to know what the Otherworld iiiis?" it asked, "It is not the same for everyone. I gave you a choice."_

"_I chose."_

"_You chose wrong!!!" it hissed, "This is your punishment!!! Your powers are mine now!!!"_

* * *

_Dragon blinked. He felt so light-headed it was untrue. Where was he? The Sun was high, full, and for the first time in ninety-five years, actually felt good on his skin. He looked at his surroundings – he was standing on some kind of hill, there was green grass as far as he could see, with wild flowers sprouting through, giving the air a wonderful scent. Something in it was familiar... _

_Anastasia..._

_Her figure lay in the grass about twenty metres away, perfectly still. He swore she hadn't been there before. He sprinted to her side, falling to his knees. "Nastiya!!!" he cried, pulling her hair back to reveal her neck. _

_He put his hand to the smooth, untouched skin, and jumped as her hand moved over his. Enchanted, he watched as she turned to look at him and giggled. "What are you doing my dorogoy?" she laughed, sitting up._

"_Oh my Goddess..." he breathed, immediately throwing his arms around her and holding her, his only lifeline. "Nastiya..." She returned it, holding onto him tightly. "But... how?"_

"_Why are you crying?" she asked, leaning back to look at him. She wiped the tears from his cheeks soothingly. "Don't cry..." She kissed him tenderly, and at that moment Dragon wished with all his heart that someone had killed him in his sleep and that this was heaven. She was in his arms, nothing could take her away now. _

"_I'm not at St. Peter & Paul yet." She said jokingly, as if the word 'silly' should have been attached to the end of the sentence."Come with me..." she said, getting up and taking his hand. As he took it, he felt a blast of cold, his vision went to black._

"_Where are you?" he asked, holding onto her hand._

"_Open your eyes." She said._

_He hadn't even realised they were closed. Opening them, a shiver immediately travelled down his spine. He had been here before. And he would never forget it. They were standing in the middle of a sparse forest, next to the edge of a mineshaft. _

_He got to his feet. "This is Yekaterinburg..." he said, "Why are we here?"_

_She now seemed more solemn. "This is where I should have ended up." She said, looking to the mineshaft. "But I escaped. I was saved."_

_The Four Brothers mine, Yekaterinburg Forest... This was a place of great sorrow for Anastasia. The first time he came here with her, he had felt the full blow of the past. He had married the Grand Duchess of Imperial Russia, Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova. The girl whose supposed survival had been a legend the world over for years, whose survival had been completely disproven by scientists a mere year ago. The fledgling who had, in fact, survived. The magic involved had been complex, but, somehow, she had ended up at his House of Night in Spain, without a glimmer of hope or a word of Spanish to her credit. This mineshaft was the very one the Bolsheviks had thrown the remains of her beloved family into. _

_Dragon looked down the mineshaft, and blinked again. It wasn't how it was when he was here before. Before, it had been pitch black and deep. Now, it was shallow, and even more spectacularly still, it was completely lined with white diamonds. He looked back to his wife – she seemed frightened of the pit, but couldn't seem to move away. _

_The colour of the diamond began to shift to black, and a nasty black smoke arose out of it. Dragon watched astounded, as the smoke began to take a form. _

_It was Neferet. _

_Her arms encircled Anastasia, pulling her backwards, her hand slipping from his. In a flash of horror, he reached forward to grab her, but she fell through of his grasp, and into the shallow pit. _

_Neferet was gone, but something about Anastasia had changed. She looked thinner, weaker, petrified. She sat on the bottom of the pit, frozen, and starting to hyperventilate, almost like she was claustrophobic, when he knew she wasn't. _

"_Help me..." she said, fumbling, trying to find her feet, but falling again, like she hadn't the strength. The fear in her voice drove through him like a stake. _

_He leant down and held out his hand. "Take my hand..." he said. It was easy, she could reach._

_She panicked. "Help me!!!" she shrieked, hitting at the diamond with her hands like she was trapped. "HELP ME!!!" _

"NASTIYA!!!"

Dragon sat up, sweat pouring from his body. His heart was thumping so loud he could hear blood pulsing in his temples. He immediately felt dizzy, his vision wavering as he realised he had woken up, the reality. His breath came in fast pants and he felt freezing cold. Trembling, he took a look at the glass of wine and soup Lenobia had brought him. The soup had gone cold hours ago, and the thought of drinking the wine, which indefinitely had blood in it, made him feel sick. As his heart calmed, he closed his eyes and made himself take deep breaths. The uncomfortable feeling of having woken from a nightmare brewed inside him. He felt like he was still in the dream, that connection, between him and her, the one that pulled his heartstrings when hers were hurting, the one that had once allowed them to communicate telepathically when they tried, it was there. Was it so strong it survived? At that moment when he had called her name, he could have sworn, he felt a tiny jerk.

Closing his eyes painfully, he let himself fall backwards, his head hitting the pillow. And just in case, just, he answered it.

"My dorogaya..."

* * *

Lenobia sighed. Daylight. And Stevie Rae was stuck in the ground, outside. Brilliant. Just brilliant. Fetching a tent from the store room, she ran back into the light to under the tree where she was stuck. She could smell blood. Raven Mocker blood. Was one near? The entire area smelled of Raven Mocker, but this was close. Ignoring it, she watched the girl's eyes from that tiny hole in the Earth. What on Earth had she been doing out in broad daylight? Clearly, red vampyres were even more susceptible to it than normal ones. She sighed again – she did not need the stress. She hadn't slept for nearly two days. Only Rosalina's iron fist gave her any peace of mind. She had quickly put an end to Penthesilia's endless reel of grammar worksheets and Gramy's impossible amounts of vocabulary memorising. Adélaïde reassured her that she would break the spell over the House of Night, everything was just taking far too long.

After sorting out Stevie Rae, she began to head back to her own suite, reaching into her pocket and flipping her phone open. Five unread text messages, and two missed calls. One of which, she noted was from Dragon. The reception was bad at this campus, and her missed calls notifications sometimes didn't come in until hours after the call. Maybe Dragon had rung her back after he had dealt with Stark when she was starting the diversion. Checking the notification, she was surprised to read that the call had come in barely five minutes ago. Instantly she was concerned, and instead of the right she took to her suite, she took the left to Dragon's. She knocked on the door. Again, there was no answer.

"Dragon?" she said, "It's me."

A solemn reply sounded. "The door's open."

Entering and seeing no one, her eyes resting on the blade case again, which, to her relief, was still closed, however on closer inspection she noticed that the key had been moved. She had left it vertical in the lock, it was now turned to about 100 degrees. She bit her lip, before heading for the bedroom again. Dragon was sitting on the bed, this time wearing crisp pyjamas. He was also holding a hot water-bottle to his head. Lenobia noticed the steam coming from the ensuite. "Why are you having a shower now?" she asked, sitting beside him.

"I dreamt about her..." he said, once again looking at the pictures he had fallen asleep watching. "At the beginning, she was fine..."

Lenobia listened as jumbled details of his dream poured out of his mouth, her fear heightening when she saw he hadn't eaten or drunk anything. He could barely sleep, and he was already getting weaker. Again, she was lost for words. What to say to him?

"Maybe she's letting you know she's okay."

He shook his head and closed his eyes. "Since I woke up..." he said, clasping the hot water-bottle tightly, "I've been... hearing her voice... Sometimes whispering sometimes screaming, but I swear I can hear her. Like... like she's trying to tell me something."

"You think she is trying to tell you something?"

Dragon's red eyes met Lenobia's in a flash. "Don't you think I'm hearing things?" he asked her, his gaze wondering back to the photographs.

Lenobia paused. Was he hearing things? It would be so easy to put it down to that. Then again, their connection, so strong it was telepathic, could he really hear her voice? "Only you can know that." She said.

"I do not know myself." He said. "Oh Lenobia please stop worrying for everyone... Go to bed, you haven't slept in days."

"I wish it were so easy..." she replied, "If you will be alright..." he nodded abruptly, cutting her sentence short. She got up and went to the door, pausing as her hand touched the wood. "Please drink something..." she begged him quietly, "Even if it's only water."

* * *

"_He's hurting."_

_The voice chuckled darkly. "Yes, your beloved mate is slowly dying."_

_The pain was so great she almost fell to her knees. Slowly, she forced herself to stand up, trembling with hurt and anger. "I'm not done with you yet..." she seethed, her voice rising to a shout, "Neferet!!!"_

* * *

The words echoed across waters afar, for the large part unheard. But across water and land alike, far away in San Clemente, they awoke.

"FUCK!!!!" screamed a voice, fumbling around in the dark, hands searching for a lamp switch, "_Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK_!!!!!!!!"

The light went on. "What's the matter are you alright???"

"_I can't see!!!! I've gone fucking blind again!!! Zoey get me a__** fucking**__ cold facecloth_!!!"


	3. Anglais, s'il vous plait

_**Resurrected**_

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**Me: Here's the next instalment. Things actually start happening here. R&R!!!**

* * *

"Ah Lenobia, ma Cherie, do you 'ave a moment?"

Madame Adélaïde Ségaèle finally caught up with Lenobia at supper the next day, as she was twisting a piece of spaghetti around her fork aimlessly.

"Of course." She said, pulling her cup of coffee out of the way so that Adélaïde could sit down opposite her. The Frenchwoman seated herself and took a sip of her own coffee.

"'Ow is he?" she asked sympathetically.

Lenobia put her fork down. "Not well." She said, "He won't eat, he won't drink, he can't sleep."

"Poor boy." Said Adélaïde, "We will 'ave to shovel food down his zhroat at zhis rate."

"Well I'm certainly not going to be the one trying to restrain him."

She laughed. "Ah, I remembere, when zhey met."

"You do?"

She nodded, giving a chuckle. "Zhey tried to keep it from us but you know 'ow zhat works." She said, tapping her temple with her finger, before looking more glum, "Nastiya came to me minutes before she Changed, she wanted advice." She said, taking a bite of her bread roll. "Did you know..." she continued, swallowing, "She told me, zhat she could even 'ear his zhoughts sometimes."

"Even then?"

"Mais oui."

"Adélaïde..." Lenobia began, wording it carefully, "Is it possible, in, a situation like theirs, that such telepathy is still possible, even after death?"

The Frenchwoman thought for a moment. "I, suppose, in zheory. I 'ave never 'eard of it 'appening zhough."

"Ah gut, du bist noch da." _Ah good, you're still here._

Both vampyres looked around to see Juliane place her plate at Lenobia's right and sit down.

"Morgen." _Morning. _Said Lenobia, sipping the coffee. She needed something stronger.

"Den Pferden geht's gut." _The horses are fine._ Said Juliane. She had let Lenobia sleep in today. Something Lenobia hadn't done since she was eight. It felt like a crime leaving the horses, but Juliane took excellent care of them, and the rest had been beneficial.

"Anglais, s'il vous plait." _English, please._ Adélaïde injected, snapping her fingers.

"Heve you heard from Erce yet?" asked the other Horse Mistress, peeling the lid off a yoghurt.

"Not yet. I only hope no news is good news."

"Cherie, do you zhink maybe zhat you should go with Monsieur Lankford to San Clemente?" asked Adélaïde.

"Do you think we should be there?" asked Lenobia suddenly.

"I zhink you heve a lot of credibility, as far as zhe Council is concerned, vhich could go in zheir favour." Juliane answered. "Plus, it vould give him somezhing to focus on, maybe zhe chance to avenge, so zhat her death vas not in vain, vould give him zhe vill to live a little."

* * *

"Can you see yet?"

"Ugh! A little bit."

In San Clemente, things were not going as well as Zoey had hoped. Quite the opposite. Heath was gone. And the Council had just sat there and watched. She had been physically sick several times, and spent hours crying, so much so that Aphrodite has eventually rolled over, clamping her pillow over her head. They had all agreed that Council resume tomorrow.

It was two o' clock in the daytime, their rooms shuttered and blinded, they were making a vague attempt at sleep, as Erce had suggested, when Aphrodite had woken up, screaming expletives. Now, holding a cold flannel to her face, Zoey passed half-heartedly her a glass of water, which she gladly took.

"Haven't you got anything stronger?" she asked, sniffing it and wrinkling her nose.

Zoey was pissed. She'd had enough for one day. "Sadly, no."

"Well damn."

"What did you see?"

Aphrodite exhaled loudly. "I was, in this, forest. I don't know where, it was just really, really cold. And there was this sign with like, funny writing on it."

"It's a start."

Aphrodite narrowed her eyes, annoyed, but continued anyway. "I was standing outside this mineshaft thing, I heard screaming coming from inside it so I looked down it. It was shallow, and lined with diamonds. Seriously I can't believe there were so many diamonds there and no one had thought to extract them."

"Focus much?"

"As I looked down, I recognised the voice. It was Professor Anastasia."

Zoey sat down next to Aphrodite. "Go on..." she urged.

"She was sitting in the little diamond pit thing, she was seriously beat, she looked awful. She was weak, skinny, and really, really scared. She was shouting at me. I didn't understand what she was saying, it sounded like 'pomogi muhnee-eh". I leant down and extended her my hand. That's when I realised I wasn't seeing the vision as me, I was seeing it as Dragon. Like I was him, my hand was his. And, as she shouted, I felt this horrible, indescribable fear. And then, I was me again, Dragon's presence faded, I was standing there as me. Professor Anastasia didn't seem to notice, the diamond around her was beginning to melt, like water, and swallowed her, she just, fell through something that should have been solid. But when she was under it became solid again, it was vile, like looking at someone trapped beneath solid ice, drowning." Aphrodite took a breath, beginning to become distressed, "I tried to help her but my body wouldn't move!!!"

"Is that it?"

"No..." she trailed, "There was a smell in the air... It was Neferet's smell, like she'd gone and sprayed her skanky perfume everywhere."

Zoey absorbed this information like a sponge, her nerves fraying to their ends. "Emergency meeting needed."

Five minutes later, everyone was sitting in Zoey and Aphrodite's room, perfectly wide awake and serious. The Twins were sitting huddled side by side on Zoey's bed, Damien and Jack were sitting on the floor, Darius was next to Aphrodite, comforting her, and Stark leant with his back against the door. They all sat silently as Aphrodite explained again what she saw.

"Double weird." Said the Twins in unison as she finished.

"All this working out is like cracking the DaVinci Code." Said Jack, clasping Damien's hand.

"You said you saw the first part through Dragon, right?" asked Damien.

Aphrodite nodded. "Yep."

"Well does that mean that Dragon saw it too? Or at least the first part of it?"

"Maybe." Said Darius. "Then again he may not have done."

Damien continued. "And you said you saw a sign, was it a place sign or something?"

"Yeah, but I can't read it."

"It wasn't the Cyrillic alphabet was it?"

Aphrodite looked pissed. "How the fuck should I know???"

"Can you write it down?"

Scowling, Aphrodite did so, and Damien looked at the paper like a scholar marking a student's essay. "Yep, that's Cyrillic."

"How did you guess that?" asked Stark from the door.

Damien grinned intelligently. "Because Professor Anastasia was Russian."

"I don't suppose amongst your encyclopaedic brain archives there lies the ability to speak Russian?"

"No Aphrodite, I can't read it."

Zoey impatiently broke the argument. "So we know it was in Russia, which explains the cold. That's cool, I mean, that narrows it down to Russia, which is, by the way, only the largest country in the world."

Damien looked at the paper again. "I wonder who could read this?"

"Alright, let's move on, none of us are going to magically gain the ability to speak Russian in the next few days." Said Stark.

"You said it was a pit of diamonds." Said Erin.

Shaunee finished the sentence. "Yes, now that was super-weird, and must have been super-expensive!"

"And that it stank of Neferet."

"Weird. She's had a thing for diamonds since she left hasn't she? She was wearing a rather flashy number earlier today, looked like Pocahontas' necklace, only muuuuuch sparklier, didn't you see it Twin?"

"Twin, I gawked at it. I bet those were Russian and all."

"Guys!" Zoey screamed, her eyes still red from crying.

They both spoke at once. "Sorry Z."

Stark came away from the door and sat down next to Zoey, enveloping her into his arms and rocking her gently.

"But how is it relevant?" Everyone looked at Darius as he worded the question. "With all the other visions, there has been some connection, to Kalona, to Neferet, to Zoey's impending doom. How does this one fit in?"

"It's like it's telling you that Neferet was directly involved in Professor Anastasia's death. But I don't see why you should have a vision of her, but not of any of the other professors who were killed." Said Damien.

"But she wasn't, Kalona gave the order, and even then it wasn't specific to any one person."

"This is going to sound odd..." said Jack, "But, why Anastasia? Why not Lenobia? Anastasia was a powerful spell-caster, whereas Lenobia's affinity gives her very little means of defending herself in battle. Why would any sane Raven Mocker go for Anastasia rather than Lenobia? And why didn't Anastasia fight back?"

Erin spoke up, now sounding more serious. "Jack has a point." She said, "She had already taught us simple spells that would have helped her escape."

"I don't know... I don't know the answers to any of these questions..." said Zoey tiredly.

"We know Z, it all just makes very little sense."

"None of this shit makes sense." Aphrodite spat, "And there is of course, one major difference in this vision."

Zoey sat up a little. "What?"

Aphrodite rolled her eyes. "Would you dorks get a clue? I have always had visions of future tragedy. This is the first vision I have ever had of someone who is already dead."

* * *

Lenobia was not sure if she was trusting her gut, or if she was clinically insane. At this rate, she was very probably both. After having received a phone call from Erce telling her that Zoey's human consort had been killed, she had almost thrown her phone at the nearest wall. No news had definitely been good news. She had very gratefully accepted Rosalina's offer of breaking the horrible news to the boy's parents, and decided that enough was enough. She turned her head to the side to look at Dragon, who was asleep, but far from peacefully. The past few hours had flown through her grasp, and the two were on the Spanish jet to San Clemente. She watched as he tossed and turned in his seat, and tried desperately to pretend he was dreaming of something pleasant. Try as she might, she couldn't follow her own advice and sleep on the plane, not when things were as they were. The speaker above their heads came on, and a female voice spoke clearly. "_This is your captain speaking, the cabin crew wish to inform you that we will be touching down in San Clemente in approximately ten minutes. Please keep your seatbelts fastened as we prepare to land. The time in San Clemente is nine thirty am, thank you and enjoy the rest of your flight._"

The speaker seemed to wake Dragon from his slumber with a jolt. "Easy..." she said, "Are you alright?"

He looked close to tears again. "It was worse this time..." he said, breathing hard, "She was beneath the diamond..."

"Lenobia looked confused. "Beneath it?"

"It was like, like she was drowning under a sheet of thick ice..." he shuddered, "I _tried, I tried and tried but I couldn't get her out_..."

Lenobia was about to say 'it was only a nightmare', but just as she opened her mouth, his hands clasped at his head, and he screwed his eyes shut, like he had a monster-migraine. "What is it?"

He said nothing for a few minutes. "I can hear her..." he said, keeping his eyes closed, "She keeps begging me to help her... And..." he bit his lip, "She says something about her necklace... But it's so faint..."

"A necklace?"

"The one her father gave her for her sixteenth birthday..." he said, "It's diamond, set in gold... You've seen it, the one she always wore to the Eclipse Ball."

Lenobia remembered. She also remembered wondering how wealthy Anastasia's father must have been to afford it. "Why is she telling you about it?"

"I wish I knew..." he said.

"Did it mean very much to her?"

Dragon sat back in his seat as the plane landed. "Yes. She was incredibly fond of her father. It is the only thing she had left of her family."

Getting off the plane, Lenobia was relieved to finally see Erce standing there waiting. She only wished she could have seen Erce under less pressing conditions. They might have gone riding, talked horses for days on end, but both of them knew there was a job to be done. Erce took them back to her apartment, taking them in as personal guests, and made them some food. Later, as Lenobia was getting ready to go to bed, she heard a knock on her door. "Avanti!" _Come in! _she called.

Erce appeared around the door. "May I come in?"

"Of course." She said, brushing her hair slowly.

"I need to talk to you about something." She said, "But I didn't want to talk about this earlier, not in front of Dragon..."

"What is it?"

She looked pained to be reduced to spreading gossip. "You will find this odd..." she began, "There have been, mysterious goings-on, for want of better words, inside the Council walls." Said Erce seriously. "Neferet thinks that she is being haunted."

Lenobia blinked and frowned disbelievingly. "Haunted?" she said, exaggerating the word.

Erce nodded. "Strange things have been happening around her, in plain sight as well. Doors slamming, cold winds blowing, things being moved. The senior Council members have seen things float right before their eyes. Voices whispering, screams being heard. And Neferet appears genuinely worried by it."

"She appears genuinely worried about a lot of things." Said Lenobia scathingly.

"One of the Council's servants is a rider at my yard, I get a lot of inside information from her. She overheard Neferet arguing with Kalona about it."

"Is she trustworthy?"

Erce nodded again. "Yes. She heard Neferet protesting to Kalona about it, asking him to set the Raven Mockers on it. She was also going through their library, trying to find some sort of exorcism. It's quite bizarre."

"You think it's possible?"

"If it is possible to talk with horses, I suppose one may consider it possible for ghosts to exist."

Lenobia remembered one detail, and with a sweeping realisation, she thought she knew where this was going. "Why didn't you want to talk about this in front of Dragon?"

Erce listened for a minute to check that Dragon was still in the shower, before speaking. "Because Neferet is convinced that the ghost is Anastasia Lankford."


	4. Grand Duchess Maria

_**Resurrected**_

* * *

**Me: Next part. Some more notes:**

"**Masha" is a nickname for "Maria". I guess that's it for this chapter lol R&R pleaseeeeee! It keeps me sane!!! I realise that this fic has very little to do with the actual main characters and far too much to do with Anastasia, who doesn't have a single line throughout the books lol but I wanted to use different characters to tell a story, plus I find Zoey 'tedious', for want of a better word. **

**This fic is about love, loss, friendship, manipulation, and how nothing is how it truly seems, and it is definitely different, something I am proud of. Enjoy! **

* * *

"_How are you doing this???"_

_The shriek echoed off the sparkling walls, almost knocking her clean off her feet. _

"_I know it's you, you __**witch**__!!!"_

_She put her hands to her knees, summoning the strength to speak. "Not long ago you deemed that to be impossible." _

"_It is __**your **__essence! __**Your **__aura! I can smell it!!!"_

"_Your nose is blocked." She said defiantly, falling to the floor as the darkness tore her power from her, like a fish stranded on the end of a fishing-line. She trembled, cold washing through her. She barely had the strength to stand, if the darkness kept feeding on her energy, she would fade away into nothing soon. How could it believe she was capable of such feats?_

"_No one mocks me before the Council!!!" it screamed, making the ground shake, "Especially not __**you**__!!!"_

* * *

"Oh Goddess I'm so glad you could come!"

Zoey's reaction to Lenobia and Dragon's arrival in San Clemente was one of joy. And Lenobia wasn't at all surprised. Her beautiful markings had gone, and she looked as though she were about to drop dead where she stood, dark circles under her eyes weighed her down, making her appear years older than her mere seventeen. She greeted both of them with hugs, to which Lenobia was taken aback, and least of all used to – students normally went out of their way to avoid her. Zoey pulled out cokes for them and began to gush all of what had transpired to them as if they were her long-lost parents.

"They adjourned the Council again???"

Lenobia couldn't believe it. Only Kalona would have that kind of leverage, but why would Neferet want to stall? Surely she wanted to be sworn in as soon as possible, with everyone here ready to stop her?

"It resumes tomorrow." Darius reported solemnly. He looked to Dragon briefly, "And we do need to talk to you."

"About what?" Dragon asked.

"Aphrodite had another vision." He said, "You may be able to shed some light on what it means."

Dragon listened silently as Aphrodite poured out the vision once again. Shock filled his system, paralysing him to the extent where he had to concentrate to pry his fingers from the material of his other sleeve. The Prophetess had seen the second part of his dream...

Damien held out a piece of paper to him. "Does this mean anything to you?" he asked, passing it to the Swordmaster.

Dragon took it, his eyes settling, his brain switching to Russian. "I already know where it takes place..." he said, "But to answer your question, this reads 'The Four Brothers Mine, Yekaterinburg Forest'."

"In Russia?"

"Yes, in the Ural Mountains."

"What does it mean though?"

Dragon looked sad. Did he have a choice but to tell them? Surely one of them would figure it out, the story wasn't exactly unknown in the human world, let alone the vamp one, and her identity was supposed to remain a secret. He decided he would be economical. "It was, a great place of sorrow for Anastasia..." he said, wetting his lip, "She grew up during the Russian Revolution. Her family were, royalists, they were assassinated after the abdication of the Tsar." He watched as faces became those of horror, "She was the only one that survived. Because she was Marked, and because she was lucky. The bodies, were taken to Yekaterinburg, dismembered, dissolved in acid, and thrown down the mine."

Everybody gasped. "How did she survive?" asked Erin quietly.

Dragon continued. "The wagon transporting them to the mine broke down on the way there. Dimitri Mihailov, whom you haven't met, but was an old professor of mine and a distant relative of theirs, had been notified by the High Priestess of St. Petersburg that one had survived. He managed to get her out, somehow."

Damien spoke up. "I've heard of Dimitri Mihailov..." he said, "He was the vamp who taught you to fence wasn't he?"

"Indeed he was."

"How did the High Priestess know?" asked Zoey.

"One of High Priestess Valentina's affinities is Precognition, a little like yours, Aphrodite."

Aphrodite looked dubious. "I still don't understand why I saw this." She said, "It involves entirely around your lives and has nothing to do with anything that will happen in the future."

Damien piped up. "I'm going to presume that Four Brothers isn't a diamond mine in real life."

"It isn't." Said Dragon, "That was what I found strange."

Listening to these things from all sides made Lenobia even more confused. The fact that Dragon had had nightmares about his recently deceased wife was what she would have expected from anyone who had been recently widowed, but Aphrodite seeing the same things, more or less, that changed everything. And why? Aphrodite only had visions of future tragedy. How could this be foreshadowing a future event? What Erce told her about Neferet trying to exorcise Anastasia's ghost was bordering on insanity, but suppose, for example for one, alcohol-fuelled moment that it was true. It was like saying that she was being kept from moving on, that she still existed in this world. Which was impossible. Lenobia had seen her on that funeral pyre.

"Zoey, I must speak with Dragon for a moment. We will check in with you later."

"Okay sure, see you guys later."

Lenobia turned and left Zoey's room, Dragon following her closely. "What is it?" He asked, catching up to walk along side her as they headed back to Erce's.

"Erce was telling me something last night." She said, looking around for anything that might be listening. "I thought you should probably know." He raised his eyebrows as if to say 'well go on then'. "Erce has it on good authority that Neferet is under the rather insane notion that a ghost is haunting her."

"And she thinks it is Nastiya."

It wasn't a question. "How did you know?"

"Why else would it concern me?" he said, "Why else would she not say it before my face?"

"What do you think?"

Dragon sighed. "Lenobia, I fear that if I say what I think I'll be branded a lunatic. A delusional widower."

"Well you'd have to tell me what you think so that I can tell you."

"Hm..." he went, "I..." he began, words sticking in his throat, "I feel, like she's close. She's still scared, and, and she's getting weaker..." he said.

"Do you think it's possible then?"

"Lenobia, I'm ready to believe in anything." He said, "But how can Neferet know who it is?"

"Erce said that things had been moved, floating in front of even the Council's eyes." Said Lenobia, listening to the rustle of the grass as they crossed the field. "Anastasia could move things without touching them."

"I want to see it for myself." He said, suddenly sounding more enthusiastic. "I'll know then."

"That would mean being around Neferet. And I don't want her to know that we're here."

"She probably does already, if she's as powerful as she thinks she is."

"So how do we get close enough?"

* * *

"You want us to cast a circle? To summon a ghost?"

"I know it sounds farfetched Zoey, but I need you to trust me, as you always have done." Said Lenobia, trying to sound like a teacher again.

Zoey's protestations seemed to disappear at that, and her face softened. "Alright." She said, "How do I do it?"

"You need to concentrate on Neferet's aura, it's that that the spirit seems to be attracted to."

"Hm, shouldn't be hard, she's everywhere, afterall."

Lenobia smirked. "Yes."

Lenobia and Dragon watched on as Zoey assembled her circle, Erin for water, Shaunee for fire, Damien for air, herself for earth, and Aphrodite for spirit. Lenobia thought to herself quietly. _"She will make a wonderful High Priestess someday..." _she thought, _"But she's not ready yet."_ It was strange to see the girl without her markings. She would ask her later on exactly what had happened. Zoey organised them as she had done before, telling them where to stand and what candles to hold and how. They all looked impatient, especially Aphrodite, who reminded them callously that they had all done this before.

She was sure that as each element was called, it became a little darker in the room. They had chosen Darius, Damien & Jack's room, as it was by far the largest of all of them. The candles wavered as air was called, and then didn't seem to stop. The dim lamp lighting the room went out, and the only light was the candles, flaring as if they were in pain. She swore that as Zoey warned them not to break the circle and to keep concentrating on Neferet's aura, she smelled mist in the air, or if not mist, some damp, dank thickness, leaking up through the floorboards. More wind blew, and the temperature must have dropped almost twenty degrees. The mist began to accumulate in the centre of the circle, and Zoey moved away, backing up to Erin and Shaunee. It grew tall, and then, all the 'excess' seemed to fall away and pool around their feet, leaving the white, glowing, transparent form of a girl in front of them.

"Oh, my, Goddess..." said Shaunee and Erin together.

Lenobia inwardly breathed a sigh of relief, as she was sure Dragon was. It was not Anastasia, that was true, but the resemblance was uncanny. The girl looked so like her she could have been a simple variation of her.

Zoey looked astounded, like she couldn't believe they had actually done it. "Wow..." she said, standing up straight again.

The ghost girl was beautiful, beautiful enough to be a vampyre. She looked to be about nineteen years old, was about five foot seven, the same as Dragon, of medium build, with long brown wavy hair and large blue eyes like saucers. She wore a light-weight satin dress, almost like Lizzy Bennett dressed to go a ball in Pride and Prejudice, with gloves almost to her shoulders. Her skin glowed with a white eeriness, lighting then entire ensemble.

Zoey finally pulled herself together. "Merry meet." She said. The ghost girl looked almost wary of Zoey, not saying anything. "Can you help us?"

The girl raised an elegant eyebrow, looking around the group, her pale pale face was impassive.

"Do you have a name?" Zoey continued. Finally, the girl nodded. Slowly, without breaking eye-contact with the fledgling, she raised her hand to the side, as if indicating to something, the window. The temperature dropped again, and they watched as the window began to ice up, cracking beneath the ice that travelled up the glass. At the height of the girl's hand, a pattern formed in the ice, cracking the pane even more. The girl lowered her hand and clasped it gently in the other, remaining completely still. Tentatively, Darius moved to the window.

"It is an emblem..." he said, studying it carefully, "An eagle, with two heads holding a globe and sceptre."

Dragon flinched. His entire body seemed tense, and he looked at the girl in white. He moved forward through them, coming out from the darkness into the illuminated area just behind Damien and Shaunee.

"I know you..." he said, "I know who you are."

The girl looked at him, studying him almost, like she vaguely recognised him from somewhere, narrowing her eyes. Her mouth never moved.

"You're her sister..." he said, looking as if he were trying to recall a distant memory but it was fractionally beyond his reach. He gave a small smile, the sides of his lips tipping into a smirk. "You are not Olga, your hair is too long. And you are not tall enough to be Tatiana..." he observed, "You are Maria."

The ghost girl's eyes widened, firstly in what seemed to be shock, and then she smiled. A big, genuine smile that lifted any sense of fear from the room. Finally, she opened her mouth and spoke her voice echoing off the walls like she were a deity. "Zachem ty vyzval menya syuda?" _Why have you summoned me here? _

Zoey simply looked at her blankly. "Huh?"

Dragon answered. "Zdravstvuĭte, moya sestra." _Hello, my sister. _He said, "Prīnosīm svoī īzvīnenīya za nashu grubost'." _We wish to apologise for our rudeness._

Everybody stared at him. "What language is that?" Zoey whispered.

"Russian." Damien whispered back.

Dragon continued. "Mozhem lī my govorīt' na anglīĭskom yazyke?"

The girl blinked, like she recognised him but couldn't put a name to him. "Yes, of course we may speak in English." She said, her voice echoing still.

"Now, why did you summon me here?"

"We need to know, is it you causing strange things to happen around Neferet?" said Zoey suddenly, gushing the words. It had clearly intended to sound more conformed, but rather came out as a rushed statement.

The girl turned to Zoey. "The consort of the one they call Kalona?" she said, before giving a smirk, "Yes."

Her attention seemed to be focused on Dragon again, her eyes searching his face carefully. "I know you too..." she said, taking a few steps closer to him. "You are the one she spoke of so fondly..." she narrowed her eyes and gave a tiny smile, snapping her fingers upon the answer. "Vy Alejandro Lankford, ne tak lī?" _You are Alejandro Lankford, aren't you?_

"Da." _Yes. _He said,

"You are just as she described." She said, smiling, immediately appearing friendly and girlish, "She would talk to us all the time, even though she wasn't sure that we could hear."

"Dragon, what's going on?" asked Zoey, still a little in awe of the girl.

"You may tell them." The girl reassured him, "It will help."

Dragon took a deep breath. "Everyone..." he began, "May I present, her Imperial Highness, the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia."

* * *

Questions rushed into and filled the heads of everyone there, and hushed murmurs broke out amongst them. Damien stared wide-eyed, and some of the others looked to each other like they hadn't heard correctly. "_Maria Nikolaevna of Russia_..." he whispered in awe, "_This is amazing_..." he grinned widely, "I can't believe it..."

Aphrodite looked unimpressed. "I still don't know who she is." She said, flicking her hair from her face.

Damien grinned again, and the Twins rolled their eyes, knowing what was coming next. "Maria Nikolaevna was the third daughter of the last Tsar of Imperial Russia." He explained proudly, "The entire family was murdered in 1918 by the Bolshevik secret police. Maria was best known as..." Damien suddenly stopped, stared at her, and then at Dragon, whose eyes were on the floor, his face almost paled, he blinked in disbelief. "The older sister of the Tsar's youngest daughter Anastasia, the Grand Duchess who supposedly, survived."


	5. My brother

_**Resurrected**_

* * *

**Me: Another one! R&R!**

* * *

"_**I tried to warn you, I really did, and yet you still continue to mock me before the Council!!!"**_

"_You need to be mocked, you are insane."_

"_**SILENCE**__!!!" it shrieked, "Your power wanes, __**witch**__, I am the only thing keeping you __**alive**__!!!"_

_Pride. "I care not. I will __**never**__ beg from a Tsi Sgili."_

* * *

"The legend is true???" Said Damien, still the only one who wasn't speechless. "But, but that's impossible!!!"

"I beg your pardon?" asked Maria, clearly offended, facing Damien and looking down at him with a regal air which didn't _quite_ suit her.

Damien gulped. "T-the survival of any of them was completely disproven last year..." he stuttered, "By DNA-testing."

Dragon finally broke his silence. "Remember that magic is powerful, Damien." He said, "There are spells out there easily capable of fooling a DNA test."

"What you were telling us about Yekaterinburg... It was the actual Imperial family you were talking about, and Mihailov rescuing her..."

"Mihailov used a simple duplication spell to make a lifeless carbon-copy of Anastasia's body." Said Dragon, "It was that which fooled the American scientists."

Shaunee suddenly started jumping up and down. "Oh! Oh oh oh twin, it's like the animated film!!! I loved that as a kid!"

"I still do, twin." Erin replied.

Dragon looked almost bored, like he'd heard it a million times before. "It was incredibly lenient with historical fact."

"So, you are Anastasia's sister?" asked Darius.

Maria nodded. "One of." She said. "Alexej and I were chosen to come here." She looked around, over her shoulder, and called out. "Alexej!" her voice rang through their skeletons like a bell in a cry that they could probably hear back in Tulsa.

The mist swirled at Maria's side, and the form of a young boy in his early teens and a military uniform appeared beside her, his two hands clasped in front of him, his face gaunt and confused. "Masha!" he moaned, "You said you would talk to them!"

"You may make an appearance for Nastiya's sake." She said, her voice scolding. Again, it didn't suit her, she seemed like a simple, fun-loving girl trying to fill a Grand Duchess' shoes.

"Is she alright?"

Dragon's question cut between them like a knife. Maria's cool air held fast, her huge eyes betrayed her worry. "Our sister has not yet joined us in the Otherworld."

Dragon caught his breath." What... How?"

"This is why your Goddess sent us." She said, "To guide you on your way. We weren't exactly told to disturb Kalona's consort, then again Alexej is a mischievous child."

"It wasn't just me!"

Maria ignored him. "We sense our sister's aura surrounding her. It's in the spells she casts, within her own aura, even in her life-force."

Dragon forced himself to conceal the feeling of elation that coursed through him. She could only be a spirit, even if her spirit had not yet moved on, it eventually would have to, regardless of what happened. "Does, does that mean her spirit has not yet moved on?"

"She is not a spirit yet!" said Alexej defensively. "My sister is a fighter! As if she would really let an overgrown blackbird get her?!"

"W-what?"

Maria continued. "We believe dark magic is being used to trap her and gain access to her power, her life-force." She explained, "It is how the one you call Neferet is able to act so innocently. As her dark side grows, so do her evil powers, but her good powers are dying inside her. Not because Nyx has taken them away, but like any life they need to be supported by good to survive, and function convincingly to the Council. To appear normal, mortal, to continue to use magic, and her affinities, she needs a source. Our sister has unwillingly become that source."

Dragon closed his eyes painfully, and Lenobia covered her mouth to stop her jaw from dropping. They knew what that meant. Anything that was left of Anastasia was being zapped by Neferet. Her power, her life-force, her state of existence. If Neferet was taking it from her, eventually, there wouldn't be anything left.

"There is time." Said Maria, "But not much. Her aura grows weaker." She looked sad, "She can't hold on much longer."

"How can we help her???" Dragon demanded fiercely, his eyes coming to life like fire.

"Free her." Said Maria.

"How???" he begged, his voice rising to a shout, his desperation eating him from inside out.

"Free her." Said Maria again. "How, and exactly from where, we don't know. But Neferet must be overcome."

"Killed?" asked Lenobia.

"Most likely."

The boy, whom Dragon knew to be the last Tsarevich, Crown Prince, of Russia, was looking at him. There was a small pause, before Alexej addressed him in Russian. "You are my brother aren't you?"

Dragon's attention swerved to the boy. He looked like a child trying his absolute hardest to be a man, before he was ready. He smiled lightly. "I suppose I am."

"Then I know I can trust you." He said.

"I do not even trust myself." He replied, lowering his gaze to the floor again.

"Back then..." he said, "Mama and Papa always were adamant that my sisters marry princes..." he said, "When Nastiya met you, Mama was horrified." He said, laughing, and earning a laugh from Dragon in return, "But Nastiya insisted you were one." He grinned at the story, "You make my sister so happy..." he said, "So I like you."

"How can you trust me?" he asked, his Russian never once faltering, "I've broken so many promises. I promised to protect her with my life, and I failed, I promised to protect her identity, and I failed!"

"Not for lack of trying." He said, "And we need you to try again. She needs you to try again. Because when she has the choice between us and you..." he said, "She will choose you every time. Even if it means she has to give up her own existence waiting."

* * *

"Well this definitely ranks as one of the shittiest days ever, I suppose it was marginally more normal than yesterday though." Said Aphrodite as she climbed into bed.

"I wonder what Alexej was saying to Dragon..."

"Who cares?" she replied, "The kid spoke English, he said it in Russian, it probably wasn't meant for our unimperial ears."

"Just because you've met someone who might have been richer than you." Zoey quipped.

"No one had any taste in the early nineteen hundreds." She said.

"She looked like she was from Pride & Prejudice."

"Pride and what now?"

"Forget it." Said Zoey, getting into bed, "And can you turn out the light?"

Aphrodite gave a wave of her arm in a mock-bow, before obliging and turning out the light. A few moment of silence passed, before Aphrodite spoke up again. "You're not okay are you?"

"I've lost Heath, I've lost Nyx's favour, I'm nothing anymore." She said quietly.

"You haven't lost Nyx's favour." Said Aphrodite, rolling her eyes like an older sister telling her sibling 'of course you're not gonna fail.'

"But all my tattoos..." she said, looking at her hands and up her arms, "Their gone. I always took it that when I got a new one, it was Nyx telling me that I was doing the right thing, what She wanted me to do. Did I do something wrong?"

"How can you have done something wrong? I thought that was impossible."

"I'm scared." She said, "I'm scared that I've gone off track."

"Well now ya tell us." Said Aphrodite arrogantly, "Listen, you have to go out there and make it so that boyfriend number two's death wasn't in vain. Not just boyfriend number two, what about Shekinah, Nolan, Anastasia, Hell even Blake? Tell ya what Zoey, let's just go home tomorrow so more people can meet that fate."

"Aphrodite!!!" Zoey shrieked, "How can you say that???"

"Just shut up and go to sleep, some High Priestess you're supposed to be." She grumbled, once again pulling the pillow over her head.

That kept Zoey awake for a long time. As much as it pained her, Aphrodite was right. She had to keep going. Her thoughts filled with the people around her, what would she do if she lost anyone else? Every time she closed her eyes, she saw pictures, memories. It was far easier to keep them open, it was darker that way.

She pulled the covers up around her chin and curled up into a ball – sleep had to come eventually. She thought she might even have been nodding off – gradually the memories and thoughts started to do weird things, saying things they'd never said before. Barely conscious, Zoey realised that she was finally falling asleep. From her almost slumber, she felt a shadow cast over her back. Someone shuffled beside, her and she waved her arm around instinctively. "Aphrodite go 'way..." she mumbled as her arm hit something which felt like someone's stomach. She hit out at it again when it didn't move the first time. Pissed off, she swung around and sat up. "What the Hell are you doing???"

The person she came face to face with was not Aphrodite. Two green eyes, filled with greed and insanity peered down onto her, and suddenly, Zoey was only two inches tall.

"_APHRODITE RUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_"

...


	6. Grand Duchess Anastasia

_**Resurrected**_

* * *

**Me: Another one! R&R! **

**Notes: Just a few differences between what happens here and what happened in real life, as I have tried to keep the Anastasia story close to the real events of the assassination:**

**The part about diamonds being in the girls' clothes and shielding them from bullets is true, as is the part about Maria trying to escape and being shot in the thigh. The part about Anastasia fainting, being hit in the shoulder and falling behind Tatiana is not. **

**The wagon transporting the bodies really did break down, but it was on the way from the mine to the second burial site and none of the guards attempted to remove any of them.**

**The real Ivan Kleschev did state that he would marry one of the Grand Duchesses and save her from the Ipatiev House if her parents said no, but it was not specifically Tatiana. **

**The real Ivan Skorokhodov did smuggle in a birthday cake for Maria. They were discovered in the private moment and he was removed from his post as described in the story.**

**The rest is completely made up.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Zoey was falling. She didn't know how far or for how long, she just felt herself plummet further into the hard blackness, the smell of evil magic was pungent in the air around her. She could hear Neferet's voice creep into her ears in whispers that were unrecognisable as words, and then out again as air blasted past them. She had had enough close shaves with death in her lifetime already, and she was sure that if she hit anything now, it would certainly kill her. Maybe Neferet had killed her. Surely Kalona wouldn't allow that – then again what had Neferet ever cared for his authority?

It felt like her limbs were slowly being eaten away by the pitch black, the feeling completely disappearing, leaving her wondering if all she was was a voice, like her mind was all that was left of her. Silently, she cursed Neferet a thousand-fold, as even her mind faded away to nothing.

* * *

"Nerd-Herd!!!!!! Get your asses out of bed right now!!! Zoey's gone!!!"

Aphrodite screamed at the Twins as she burst through their door – the geeks couldn't be asleep already? Seeing both of them sit up and scream back at her, she sprinted along the corridor in her pyjamas to the boys' room. Hammering on the door, her panicky breath condensed before her face. "Darius!!! You gotta help!!! Zoey's gone!!!"

The door was open in a shot, and Aphrodite threw herself at Darius. He held her close. "What's happened?"

"I don't know!" she snapped, "One minute she was there, I heard her scream at me to run, and she was gone!!!"

Stark ran at the couple, prying them apart and clasping Aphrodite's arms, almost shaking her. "Where did she go???" he yelled, falling back a little as Darius knocked him off, but he seemed to come back with a vengeance, his eyes wild. "What happened???!!!"

"I just said!!!"

"Stark, enough!" Darius said, raising his voice, "I'll go and check the room, you run and get Dragon and Lenobia."

Reluctant to leave, Stark's expression was murderous as he retrieved his bow and arrows from the closet and slung them over his shoulder. "Watch them." He said fiercely, stalking out of the room like Neanderthal man going on a hunting trip.

Picking up a handgun, Darius walked hand in hand with Aphrodite back to the room she shared with Zoey. Opening the door in a flash and pointing the gun in, they slowly inched their way in. It looked exactly as it should. Going over to the window, he tested it – shuttered, locked. He looked confused and looked back up at Aphrodite. "Was the door locked?"

"Yeah."

Darius checked everything – there was no possible way out. "Was she in bed?" he asked, eyeing her duvet suspiciously.

"Well duh."

"Because the covers weren't even pushed back look." He said. The bedcovers were untidy and crumpled, but still in place, like Zoey had simply vanished from under them.

The Twins appeared at the doorway in their matching pyjamas. "What's happened?"

Aphrodite sighed frustratedly. "Zoey just had to up and disappear into thin air, didn't she?"

* * *

It was dark again.

But at least she had her mind back.

Unfortunately, her limbs were back too. All four of them hurt like crazy.

Where was she? Her palms were grazed, and flat against a smooth, cold surface, as was her left cheek, and, well, the rest of her. She felt weak, and any attempt to open her eyes resulted in blurriness and spinning. Waiting for the dizziness to subside, she blinked a few times, noting that there was actually light here, it was refracted off the walls, which were all made of a clear cut glass. The light was still dim, and everywhere she turned she saw a reflection of herself. It was like being in a Hall of Mirrors.

Groaning at the stinging that plagued every inch of her skin, she forced herself to get up, wobbling onto her feet, her head throbbed like Hell. Looking around, all she saw was herself in the walls, except...

There was another figure, female, about sixty metres away, sitting on the floor. Zoey blinked again as she forced her eyes to focus – it couldn't be...

"Oh my Goddess..." said Zoey, breaking out into a run towards her, "It's not possible..."

Zoey arrived in front of the woman and covered her mouth in shock. The petite woman, who had long, loosely crinkly chestnut hair and bright blue eyes looked up at Zoey, opening her eyes. "Zoey...?" she murmured. It was heart-breaking – it was like she had completely lost the will to live, "She got you too..."

* * *

Zoey couldn't believe it. What on Earth was going on? Was this the prison Maria spoke of?

"_Professor Anastasia_???"

Zoey wasn't seeing things. Anastasia was Anastasia alright, but she was so weak it was a horrendous sight. She was thinner than anyone ever should be, her eyes sunken and dull.

"How? I mean, how are you alive???"

The Spells & Rituals professor forced herself to sit up properly. "I always was." She said, beckoning for Zoey to sit down beside her.

"Where are we?" she asked, taking a seat.

"Did you see the diamond necklace Neferet was wearing at the Council?" Zoey nodded, "We are inside it."

Zoey blinked. "What??? How is that possible???"

She took a deep breath. "It is possible, for someone with dark powers such as Neferet's, to imprison a person, human or vampyre, inside an object, as long as it is an object of great sentimental value to that person." She explained, "Although how you can have ended up in here with me, I do not know."

"That necklace, it belongs to you?"

The professor nodded. "My father gave it to me for my sixteenth birthday." She said, "It is the only thing I have left of my family."

"Your father, he was the Tsar of Russia."

Anastasia blinked, in something halfway between surprise and horror. "How do you know???" she asked.

"Dragon didn't tell us..." she said, "It, came out in the works, so to speak."

"What do you mean?"

"We spoke with your sister."

That sparked something for a moment, but it didn't last. "My sisters have been dead for a very long time Zoey." She said, coughing, "As have my parents and brother."

"Neferet thinks that it's you haunting her, but it's not, it's your sister." Said Zoey, desperately trying to restore life into the woman. Her eyes somehow filled with magic at the word 'sister'.

"Which one?" she asked, the sparkle spreading to her voice.

"Maria." Said Zoey, sitting down next to her professor.

Anastasia smiled weakly. "Ah yes..." she said, "It would be Maria." She said the name with the correct Russian pronunciation, pride and love shone though.

"Come again?"

"I have three sisters." She said, smiling as she remembered, "Olga is the oldest, she's lazy, and a natural at bossing people around. Tatiana is level-headed, hard-working and reserved, she was our mother's favourite. And Maria..." she laughed to herself, "Maria we always thought could never be our sister because she was so good. She never got into trouble."

"Your brother was there too."

"How?" she whispered.

"They told us, that Nyx had sent them, to help you." Said Zoey, "That they felt your aura within hers, that Neferet was somehow using you as an energy source, and that is why they haunted her."

She sighed. "I am getting weaker." She said, "Neferet is using my power, my life-force to maintain her facade. That is why she has trapped you." She said, "I will soon fade away into nothing, and she needs a constant source."

"Why did she trap you?"

Anastasia forced herself to sit up. "Because I am an obvious source of energy. My power is easy to use because it doesn't take a specific form, it does whatever I wish it to." She explained, "Also, it makes life easier for her if I am out of the equation."

Zoey's eyes narrowed in sorrow and confusion. "Why?"

"We, that is Dragon, Lenobia and myself, began to notice things about Neferet, even in the years before you came to us." She said, "Her behaviour was strange, she would swing from uncaring, to caring, we didn't know what to make of her." She coughed again, "We noticed that, whenever one of the fledglings rejected the Change, it would always be followed by what we called one of her happy spells, when she would be nice and sweet like she was supposed to be. She told us all when we came to the House of Night that if we were present when a fledgling died, we should administer a potion, to help ease their suffering. The thing is, I don't think that's what it was at all. That procedure had never been used before, so, I studied it for a while, cross-referencing it with every book I had."

"What was it?"

"The potion she wanted us to give would not relieve their suffering, those ones always contain certain chemicals, analgesics. This had nothing of the sort. So we began to observe the effect of the potion. The difference between the fledglings that Neferet gave the potions to, and the ones that we gave water to." She continued, "It appeared that the potion was stripping them of their humanity. We were already aware of these red-fledglings, as we called those whose lives were not completely lost, but James Stark was the first case we have ever seen of a Change. We were convinced that the potion was doing it to them, as none of the ones who had been given water ever came back to life."

Zoey caught on. "And Neferet was soaking up their humanity like a sponge."

Anastasia nodded. "We know that now, but before we were unaware it was going to her, although we had our suspicions. It wasn't until recently that alarm bells really started ringing."

"What happened?"

"Neferet had always been a terrible actress." She said, "Strange, you may think, but she was not a good liar, it was one of the reasons we suspected something of her in the first place. But when Patricia Nolan was killed..." She paused, "We noticed a change in Neferet as well. Suddenly everything she said was believable. There were no more funny swings... She became the perfect High Priestess. I immediately started to put the pieces together when I saw her take and wear Patricia's bracelet."

Zoey stared. "Oh God..." she said, "You can't be serious..."

"I'm afraid I am." She said, "And have you noticed, she also wears Loren Blake's Poet Laureate emblem?"

Zoey went very pale. "Are you telling me..." she said, fear lacing her voice, "That Professor's Nolan and Blake... Are like we are?" Anastasia nodded. "That can't be!" she stuttered, "They're dead! I saw their bodies! I saw you! On that funerary pyre!!!"

"Just like the government scientists' DNA tests proved that I did not survive the Romanov murder." She said simply.

Zoey spluttered, flustered. "Yes, but, that was a spell!"

"And so is this." She answered simply, "Neferet is not a fool Zoey. If her victims are visibly dead, there is no chance that anyone will ever come looking for them."

"It wasn't really you I saw? You aren't dead at all?"

Anastasia shook her head. "Neferet tried to convince me that I was, and she will probably do the same with you." She said, "But, as you know, she is feeding on my energy. And I don't have a lot left."

"How do we get out of here?" said Zoey, getting up and slapping her palms to the clear walls, as if looking for a weakness.

"Diamond is the hardest substance known to man." She said, "When my family were killed, my sisters and I were wearing diamonds in our clothes, to hide them to stop them from being confiscated when we got to Yekaterinburg." She explained sadly, "The bullets couldn't penetrate our corsets. It probably saved my life."

"I left my 44 in my other pyjamas." Said Zoey, making Anastasia laugh.

"I have no idea." She said, "Spells have to be broken. The one way to do that is to kill Neferet, but I'm afraid with you in here, that is unlikely to happen. The other way is, of course, to break it with another spell."

"I was never in your class..." said Zoey, indicating that she really didn't have a clue, "I wouldn't know where to start."

"I believe Neferet did not place you in my class for that reason." She said knowingly.

"Just tell me what to do!"

"I don't know what to do." Said the professor, defeated, "Normally I would work the spell both ways, and drain her powers into me instead, but I can't absorb her powers, she is a Tsi Sgili. I don't know Zoey! I can't think of a way out."

"There has to be one."

"Enlighten me."

Zoey stopped, and bit her lip. She came and sat down again, and noticed that tears were running silently down Anastasia's face. "Professor what's wrong?"

"I keep trying to let him know." She said, shuddering, "I think Neferet is blocking our telepathic connection. Or trying to. If I lose that, I could lose everything. It's the only thing that has kept him going, he was destroyed, which in turn destroyed me." She blinked, more tears falling, "The simple thought that I will probably never see him again will kill me if Neferet does not."

"He knows you aren't gone..." said Zoey, desperately wanting to comfort her, "He knows you still exist."

"He's confused. He doesn't know if what he's hearing from me is actually me or if he's slowly going insane, and... He's frightened." She continued, "He's frightened that even if he does find me, he may have to face letting me go. Neither of us would survive that kind of pain."

"You know him so well."

Anastasia looked sad, her eyes were red. "I feel what he feels. Everything."

Zoey looked serious again. "R-really?" she asked, "Through an Imprint?"

She closed her eyes in something between pain and impatience. "The bond between mates is far, far stronger than an _Imprint_, Zoey." She said. Zoey then felt incredibly meek. She had probably offended her. She was amazed at the ease with which she talked about it. Zoey wanted to squirm every time she had to talk about imprinting, bloodlust, sex. Yet it didn't seem to bother Anastasia at all. "Imprints are, in 99% of cases, temporary and don't come to anything, especially not with humans."

"But they're so strong..."

"Not after you've lived for longer than seventeen years." She said, "Imprints are not the be-all and end-all Zoey. Some things run deeper."

"The vamp-soc textbook says that vampyres may have a mate and a human consort." She said, remembering Damien's rant.

"Hm, the modern textbooks define 'mate' as your current vampyre-consort, your boyfriend." She said, "But that is due to the fact that the traditional concept of 'mates' occurs so rarely nowadays that it isn't really worth mentioning. Which is sad, really. I suppose a better word for what I'm trying to explain to you would be 'soulmate'."

"You mean the concept that for every one person there is only one other?"

She nodded. "Sort of. The bond between soulmates is much, much more powerful. For example, Dragon and I. We can read each other's thoughts, each other's feelings, each other's pain, and communicate telepathically. We can tap into each other's affinities. We can survive solely on the other's blood. Neither of us have any need for a human consort."

Zoey sat there, astounded. "Really?"

"In fact, when you drink from your soulmate, human blood loses all nutritional value. It is a shame, however, that now, only around two percent of vampyres ever find their soulmates."

"How do you know..." Zoey asked, "How do you know when you find them?"

She smiled. "You don't at first. It starts like any vampyre-relationship does. It just grows, beyond all proportions. Beyond the reason why. Beyond life. You feel it."

"How did you meet?" Zoey asked suddenly. She didn't want to think anymore. Her mind always went back to Heath. She felt like a small child wanting to be told a bedtime story.

"Shouldn't we be focussing on how we get out of here?"

Zoey's brow crumpled. Anastasia's bond with her husband was the only thing that could connect them to the outside world. Revoicing memories, feelings, if Anastasia remembered things only she knew, it would surely alert Dragon on his end of the thread. "I think the only way to let them know where we are is to use your connection with Dragon." She said, "Maybe we can let him know."

"I've tried."

Zoey was finally able to think on her feet. "Yes, but you said your bond isn't just about thoughts, it's about feeling. He feels what you feel." Zoey shrugged, "Maybe if you talk about it, he'll feel it."

Anastasia raised an eyebrow quizzically, "Well then, if it's the only idea we've got..." she said. Her spirit already seemed lifted, and Zoey felt a little uncomfortable at how her simply being there gave her so much hope. "Where do I start?"

Zoey shuffled. "Um... well... I, we, already know about Yekaterinburg..." She paused, not sure what to say, "I'm sorry..."

She smiled. "Thank you." She said, "But it's in the past now. And they would not want anyone to dwell upon it."

"And Mihailov saved you."

Her eyes rested to the side, downwards. "Yes... In the cellar, I fainted. As I fell behind, behind Tatiana, a bullet hit me in the shoulder. The ricochet was terrible. All I saw through the smoke as I fell was Maria screaming and trying to open the doors at the back of the room. They shot her in the thigh, and then, Tatiana fell in front of me, and that's all I remember of the cellar." Zoey could see her trembling, and her heart filled with guilt.

"You don't have to tell me everything..."

"That's alright." She wiped a tear from her eye with her sleeve, "Maybe I should. It's good for me to remember every once in a while." Zoey gave her an expression which said 'are you sure?' "I woke up..." she continued, sniffing, "I was in the back of a vehicle, it jolted, and suddenly came to a stop, and I heard voices shouting, curses mostly. The wagon had broken down. I could feel the shapes of people beneath me, and it was so cold I couldn't move properly. I was going to scream when I saw someone was opening the canvas of the truck, so I lay very very still. Three men in military uniforms peered in on us. I recognised two of them, they were guards at the Ipatiev House, Ivan Kleschev and Ivan Skorokhodov, and the other man I did not recognise at all. They all looked shocked, like they hadn't been quite prepared for the sight that met them. Kleschev was looking at Tatiana, and trying hard not to cry." She grinned in memory, "He always boasted to his friends that he was going to marry her and if our parents said no he would rescue her from the house himself." Zoey chuckled, "Skorokhodov looked destroyed as well, and began to pull one of us from the wagon. I didn't need to look to know it was Maria."

"Why?"

She smiled again. "They loved each other very much. He wasn't even supposed to be friendly towards us, and he smuggled a birthday cake in for Maria's birthday about a month before. It ended awfully though, as they went out for, shall we say, a private moment, and got caught by one of his superiors. They removed him from the house that afternoon. I saw him lift her out and hold her tightly, tears running down his face. The other man looked, more serious. He held a rubber cloth in his hand. He reached forward and rubbed it on my forehead, exposing my crescent moon where I had covered it with make-up. He saw me flinch, and in turn lifted me out. I was still pretending to be dead, and he spoke to me, he told me it was alright and that I was safe. Kleschev finally let go of Tatiana, and put his hand on Skorokhodov's shoulder. Then man holding me indicated to them with a jerk of his head, and began to walk off with me into the forest. I think I lost consciousness again after that, because I woke up again, inside a warm car. I didn't understand why I wasn't dead – I still had a bullet in my shoulder but I was barely bleeding. I was in the back of the car, laid out over the back seat, my head and shoulders in the arms of the man who had picked me up. He looked, foreign, somehow, but when he spoke with the other two, who were in the front, the one driving, he spoke Russian without an accent. He took off his military cap and picked up the rubber cloth again, this time taking it to his own face. All this make-up came off, and I saw his vampyre Mark. Then I really did scream."

Zoey sat there, enchanted. "Wow..."

"That isn't the half of it." She said, "I sat up, putting as much space between me and him as possible. He explained to me that he was a distant relative of mine, an uncle."

"It was Dimitri Mihailov."

"It was. The two Ivans, as I had always called them, reassured me they had all come to help. How long we were in that car I don't know. Days. They all took turns to drive. Eventually, they took me to the House of Night at St. Petersburg. I didn't want to stay there, I behaved, er, most inappropriately before their High Priestess." She said, the guilt still falling through her straight face, "They got the bullet out of my shoulder, but agreed that I couldn't stay there, not when pictures of me were in the newspapers every day. Once again, Mihailov bundled me into a car – no train no boat, I was too obvious. I must have travelled for well over a week, and we ended up in Spain."

"Spain?"

"My uncle, although I didn't like to call him that then, explained that he was half-Spanish, and that he lived there. It figured. He was the Swordmaster and the House of Night of Valencia." She continued, "He brought me back there, to escape Russia, to stop me from being recognised, there were lots of pictures of us in the media at the time. Anyway, I found myself in Spain, I wanted to die. The only thing that stopped me was that I knew it was what they wanted. I was destroyed, and I couldn't speak a word of Spanish. I was a recluse for weeks, finally, I began to come through it. My uncle gave me fencing lessons every day – I had been taught in Russia, it, helped take my mind off everything. One day I went down for my lesson, and my uncle wasn't there, so I went into his study to get out my blade – we used real swords back then, not these flippy-floppy foils." She paused as Zoey laughed, "As I was in there I heard somebody come in. It wasn't my uncle – I peered through the crack in the door, and, there was another fledgling, still training. Never before had I seen talent like that. I watched him for a while, until I think he heard me, because he came into the study and demanded to know what I was doing in there. Quite rightly, I was still a secret to the other fledglings and as far as he was concerned I shouldn't have been in there. I tried to explain, but we couldn't understand each other. I tried to get out, but he blocked my path. So we did what anyone would do." She smirked.

"What?"

"We had a match." She said, "He won of course, in fact my uncle arrived just in time to see me lose. That was the first time I saw him." She reminisced, smiling to herself, "I thought nothing of it at the time. I didn't see him then for another few weeks. That was Guinevere's fault."

"Ah your cat."

"Yes, she injured herself, and I was trying to change the dressing, when she leapt out of the window. So I tried to catch her. I followed her into the boy's dormitories and found her – she had hopped straight into his room. My uncle had hired a Spanish tutor for me in those few weeks, so my Spanish was, er, extremely basic, but no longer completely non-existent. He invited me in, Guinevere was snuggling up to Shadowfax. I started changing the dressing again, and, I began to feel odd." She said, trying to recall the feeling, "Like I had a hair in my throat, I started coughing, and I felt like I couldn't breathe. I had begun to reject the Change." Zoey looked horrified, "It's possible to halt the rejection if you can drink blood before your own is spilled." She explained, "He knew what to do."

"He let you drink his blood." Zoey concluded.

"Yes. I had never drunk blood before, I didn't know what to expect, and he didn't care, he only wanted to save me. It was the most sexual thing I had ever experienced; neither of us could control our reactions, and we lost our virginity to each other." She said simply.

Zoey was once again fascinated by how she could talk about sex so easily. "You make it sound so simple."

"Trust me, at the time it wasn't. If my family had still been alive, they would have disowned me completely. That made me very uncomfortable. Even though I knew that by vampyre-standards it was acceptable, it didn't change what my mother had drilled into my head since I was twelve." She chuckled. "So it went from there. We had a fantastic relationship for a few months. It ended temporarily though – he Changed, and had to leave the House of Night." She grinned at the thought, "I pined for him until I Changed myself, six months later. And he came back." Zoey raised a brow, "He had been travelling Europe, and made a stop in Russia on the way. He showed me a newspaper article with a picture of Maria and myself. He had found out who I was. Of course it didn't matter then."

"So wait, with vampire-society being matriarchal..." said Zoey, "Does that mean the woman proposes to the man?"

Anastasia laughed out loud. "No..." she said, her chuckles lighting up the room, "No he proposed to me, and that is the norm."

"And you took his name."

"Now that is not the norm. We normally keep our names, in fact sometimes the men take ours." She said, "I wanted to take his. My old name would have only drawn unwanted attention. And it meant I could have a passport."

"Huh?"

"Vampyres aren't required to show birth certificates when applying for a passport. On account of us living so long. Like I said, I couldn't have applied for one as Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova. Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova is dead. But as Anastasia Lankford, I could finally have a normal life. Maria and I..." she remembered, "We were never cut out to be Grand Duchesses like Olga and Tatiana were. All we ever wanted was to marry normally, and have big families." She sighed gently, "That is the only thing I regret about vampyre life."

Something about her words hit Zoey too. Something that had never even affected her before, something that she had never even thought about now struck her like an off chord. For all the gifts Nyx had given her, she would never be a mother. It was one of the goals of life that always went without saying, and now it was something that she would never have. Maybe she and Heath one day... By the look on Anastasia's face, it pained her also.

Anastasia looked confused as Zoey's expression changed after she stopped telling her story. Her eyes fell and she looked like something was hurting her.

"That's not really why you wanted me to tell the story is it?" she said, "Even though your reasoning was good."

Zoey once again looked down at her Mark-less arms and hands, and hung her head low, her dark hair falling over her shoulders and obscuring her face. Anastasia could see tears falling from her face.

"If I keep going..." she said, "If I just shut everything out... It doesn't hurt as much..." she broke out into racking sobs, "But I don't think I can go any further..."

Her soul was broken. Heath was dead. Everything flowed into Anastasia's mind. Vampyre Intuition was both a blessing and a curse.

Zoey was a child again. She felt Anastasia wrap her arms around her and draw her into a hug, and rock her gently, like a five year-old who had just had a nightmare or was afraid of a storm. "Oh sweetie..." she whispered, leaning her head against Zoey's.

"I miss him so much!" Zoey cried, hugging the vampyre back, "_I can't believe I let him come I can't believe I was so stupid_..."

"It's not your fault."

"I'm...supposed... to be this all-powerful force to stop Kalona and Neferet..." she sobbed, "_And I couldn't even save him_!!!"

"He doesn't think that."

"It doesn't matter what he _thinks_!!!" she gushed, tears streaming, "It only matters _what I __**did**_!!!"

As Anastasia hushed her, Zoey felt strangely content to be sitting with her at that moment. Someone else who had lost everything. She hadn't known Anastasia very well, but simply from this moment now Zoey knew that she would have been an amazing mother, far better than her own. The petite woman unwrapped her right arm from Zoey, and put her hand in her pocket. Pulling out a packet of tissues, she tore the seal, and held one out for Zoey silently.

Zoey sniffed, and took the tissue. Some people on this Earth were just meant be parents. Dragon and Anastasia were two of them.


	7. Perfect Intuition

_**Resurrected**_

* * *

**Me: Lol notes:**

"**Malenkaya" = Russian for "little one", another of Anastasia's nicknames on account of being the youngest (and shortest) sister. **

**Tatianochka = nickname for Tatiana.**

"**Nyuta" was the nickname of the Tsarina's Lady in Waiting, Anna Demidova.**

**Truth v. Fiction**

**The assassination I have kept as close as I can to what actually happened in real life, everything from that scene is true, apart from the conversation between the sisters and Anastasia surviving. There were 10 executioners, 3 local Bolsheviks and 7 communist men from Europe. They were deliberately assembled because Yurovsky doubted that Russians would fire on the Imperial Family. Yurovsky did give the death sentence, however his precise words are unknown. **

* * *

"_Girls... wake up... Girls!!! Now!!!"_

"_Nyuta... It is 2 o' clock in the morning!!!"_

_The tall and blond form of my mother's Lady in Waiting, Nyuta Demidova, began to open the drawers of the closet and pulling out corsets, blouses and skirts._

"_Do as she says, Nastiya."_

_A fully-dressed Tatiana swept around the door and closed it behind her. _

"_Tatianochka, what is going on?" asked another voice. Masha was sitting up and wiping her eyes._

"_The White Army are approaching Yekaterinburg." Tatiana explained, sorting out which clothes belonged to me and which to Masha._

"_Then we are to be saved?"_

_Tatiana looked doubtful. "In any case, the guards wish to move us into the cellar, they anticipate violence and gunfire upon the house when the whites arrive, so put your clothes on. Mama and Papa are already awake and Olga has gone to Alexej."_

"_It sounds odd to me..." said Nutya busily, "I do not understand why they would care if they left us here and we were shot in our beds."_

"_We are all the leverage they have, I suppose." Said Tatiana bravely._

_I was confused as I pulled on my clothes, waiting for the slightest bit of insecurity in my big sister's face so that I might justify this horrible feeling inside me. I could already hear shouting on the street outside and had it not been for the ugly picket-fence they had erected around the house we might have seen soldiers and guards arriving in heavily armed wagons. _

_I tried to keep spirits high. "Well I find it highly unfair that Olga and I should be the only ones not to have saviours." Tatiana and Maria were instantly eying me evilly. "Maybe we shall find guards called Ivan, wouldn't that be funny?"_

"_That would be foolish." Said Tatiana immediately, but allowing herself to smile, "Mama and Papa would never allow it, and neither would the Head of the Guard. It is not acceptable, do you remember, Masha?"_

_Masha looked visibly hurt. "I care nothing for that, I want to marry an officer and have a large family." She said, buttoning up her blouse. "And what was it Kleschev was saying the other day? Ah yes, 'I shall marry my Tatianochka, and if the Tsar and Tsarina refuse it I shall remove her from the house myself'."_

_I couldn't hide my giggles as Tatiana looked murderous. "And you know your Skorokhodov was removed from his post after you were caught. Mama and Olga still do not speak with you."_

_Masha gave a grin that said 'worth it'. I broke out into laughter. A glare from Nutya finally silenced me, and we were escorted by more of the house guard into the murky depths of the cellar. I saw Mama and Papa come down after us, Alexej half-asleep in Papa's arms, followed by Olga, Dr. Botkin, the cook, and Papa's valet. I heard Mama order for two chairs, one for herself, and one for Alexej. There was a man wearing a red armband, plump, with an oily moustache, whom I recognised as the Communist officer Yarov Yurovsky. He ordered that they be brought, and dismissed the house guard in Russian. The chairs were brought in and Mama and Alexej sat. Yurovsky made a hand-gesture to a man at the door, and I immediately heard a commotion in the next room. Tatiana was holding tightly onto my hand. And then I heard marching – disorganised marching. Ten burly men, all armed, filed into the cellar. One began talking with Yurovsky in a language I recognised as German, but their words were obscured by whispers. They suddenly stopped, and Yurovsky turned and looked at us all as if we were the lowest kind of lowlife imaginable. _

"_Nikolaj Alexandrovich Romanov, former Tsar of Russia, the Ural Soviet of Workers' Deputies finds you guilty of those charges brought before you by the Duma and sentences you to death by firing squad." _

* * *

"_What are you doing???? Where are you taking me???" _

_Fear and horror were all that was left of me. I forced myself up against the right window of the car, the freezing window pane on my back – I had to get out I had to get out..._

"_Wait malenkaya, it's alright now!"_

"_Kleschev... Skorokhodov..." I breathed, my breath uncontrollable as dizziness came over me – I broke out in a cold sweat..._

_They were dead._

_They even killed Tatiana's little dog..._

"_Easy, steady..." said the man... the vampyre..._

"_You are not one of the House Guard!!!" I shrieked in accusation._

"_We have got you now malenkaya..." said Skorokhodov gently, his eyes still red as he leaned around the passenger seat to look at me reassuringly. "He helped us find you."_

"_I don't care!!" I screamed, tears streaming down my cheek, "Take me back!!!! Take me back!!!" _

_My hand fumbled for the car door weakly as I felt myself heat up and become tingly, my sweaty palm couldn't grip the door handle. I couldn't get out... There was no way out..._

_Everything went black._

* * *

"_Anastasia... Anastasia? Can you hear me?"_

_I couldn't move..._

"_Is she awake?"_

_It was that voice... It was the vampyre..._

"_I cannot tell." said the female voice again, "Her aura conceals much from my intuition."_

"_Then let her sleep. That poor child."_

"_I am surprised it is this sister you bring me." Said the voice again, sounding weary, "In my vision I am very certain that it was Maria who survived."_

"_Anastasia is the only survivor. We were very thorough."_

"_I am sorry, Dimitri. They were your relatives."_

"_So am I. I had never met the family, I am a brother of an ancestor who lived two centuries ago, barely a relative, Valentina."_

"_So what is your plan?"_

"_She shall come with me to Valencia. Whilst I have every faith in this, indeed my old, House of Night, I do not believe it safe for her to stay in Russia. She will be recognised, and other fledglings have contact with humans on the outside. It is too risky."_

"_I agree. But how do you plan to get her into Spain?"_

"_By car. It will have to be, anything else requires papers."_

_There was a pause, and then sigh. "I have had another vision."_

"_Of her?"_

"_Although I do not know how much truth my visions bear for her, I was wrong before. Her aura is a magical one, able to thwart mine. She will develop some amazing powers, but not until she is Changed, I think."_

"_Was that your vision?"_

"_That was common sense. My vision was a really happy one for her."_

"_How so?"_

"_She will meet her true mate." Said the voice, "A fledgling with an affinity for swordsmanship, what is his name? Lankford."_

_A breath was caught. "How can you know that?"_

"_My visions tell me lots of things. He is a pupil of yours, correct?"_

_The male voice stuttered. "Yes... But he's still a fledgling, and will be for another year at least!"_

"_Fledglings, no matter how we try to prepare them, are never fully prepared for their adult lives. There are many things that fledglings do not experience until the after Change, Dimitri. However, falling in love is not one of them." _

"_How can you be so sure?" _

"_Her future..." the woman paused, "Is woven completely around it, as is his. It will bring her through her grief." _

"_Are you sure what you saw was not simply passion, or lust?"_

_She sounded perfectly serious. "Hm, I thought that, rebound, or whatever it is young people call it. No, they will fall madly in love before the year is out. I will eat my Ushanka if I'm wrong."_

_He was sarcastic. "And I suppose you wish me to organise a meeting."_

"_You won't need to. Let her live her life, Dimitri."_

"_I only have concerns for her isolation. She cannot speak a word of Spanish, I cannot watch her all the time."_

"_The Grand Duchess speaks French and German. I believe your Mistress of Sorcery is from Paris, and your Horse Mistress from Hannover." _

"_The Horse Mistress has no time to spare as it is. But maybe the Sorcery Mistress would be a better bet."_

"_When do you plan to take her?"_

"_As soon as she is conscious."_

"_You plan to drive by daylight?"_

"_Yes, the car's windows are shaded. It will take me a good week then."_

"_I have a feeling you may be taking that cat with you."_

_Cat?_

_I felt something creep onto my stomach, something with paws that prodded my internal organs..._

_Suddenly I was awake and lifting a little white cat off my stomach and onto the sheets beside me._

"_Anastasia..."_

_I reminded myself of a deer caught in the headlights of a car. I was frozen again. There were two vampyres, the male from earlier, still dressed in the Ipatiev House Guard uniform, and a female, dressed so smartly she could have been a Romanov. She had incredibly sharp features, she was almost all straight lines. Her Mark was lots and lots of tiny intricate flowing lines that looked like mist around her eyes and temples. Her hair was light blond and scraped back into a tight ponytail, her eyes were frosty and stabbed me right in the ribs. _

_It had been the male that spoke, admittedly, he looked kinder than the female. His voice was soft, calm, but very strong. _

"_My name is Dimitri Mihailov." He said, taking slow steps to my side, I leaned away from him, "In your history lessons, did you ever read about __Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov?"_

_Petrified, I nodded. "Pyotr The Great..."_

"_He was my older brother." I blinked, unable to speak. "It is for this reason..." he pointed to his vampyre-Mark, "That Ekaterina the Great was crowned Tsarina. I, lost all legitimacy, so to speak." He said, smiling._

"_Where am I?" I asked him._

"_You are at the House of Night of St. Petersburg." He said, "May I introduce the High Priestess Valentina."_

"_Merry meet, your Highness. I am sorry for your loss." _

* * *

"Lenobia..."

"Mphf..."

"Lenobia wake up."

Lenobia sat up in bed, blinking several times before looking at her alarm clock – it read 12:41pm. "Erce... What...?"

"It's Dragon..." she said.

Lenobia rolled out of bed and stuffed her feet into slippers before marching out and to Dragon's room, where Erce's head was poked around the door worriedly. "What's going on?" she asked.

"I didn't want to wake you..." she said, "He came through it for a while, but now it's back."

Lenobia peeked around the door. Dragon was asleep, again, not peacefully, he was tossing, turning, jerking, murmuring.

"Should we wake him up?"

Lenobia crumpled her brow. "I don't know."

* * *

"_That's not really why you wanted me to tell the story is it_? _Even though your reasoning was good."_

_I'm not sure what told me. She had seemed so normal, aside from her loss of Markings. But, everything she asked me, it wasn't like I was being asked by someone who was almost an adult, it was like I was being asked by a tiny child. Like something in her mentality had reduced her. The only part of her that could escape was the part she had become now. Tears began to fall from beneath the cascades of dark hair that lay over her shoulders._

"_If I keep going..." she said, "If I just shut everything out... It doesn't hurt as much..." she broke out into racking sobs, "But I don't think I can go any further..."_

_I wrapped my arms around her and drew her into a hug, rocking her gently, like a five year-old who had just had a nightmare or was afraid of a storm. "Oh sweetie..." I leant my head against hers and listened to the leftover shards of her soul. _

"_I miss him so much! I can't believe I let him come I can't believe I was so stupid..."_

"_It's not your fault."_

"_I'm...supposed... to be this all-powerful force to stop Kalona and Neferet..." she sobbed, "And I couldn't even save him!!!" _

"_He doesn't think that."_

"_It doesn't matter what he thinks!!!" she gushed, tears streaming, "It only matters_ what I **did**!!!"

_As she suddenly reached around me and clung onto me, I felt a powerful fire arise from the depths of my soul, one that was fiercely protective and that wanted to rip out the throat of the person who had done this to her. And at the same time I felt horrendously powerless. I wanted nothing more than to make everything okay for her, and knew there was absolutely nothing I could do, and it made me feel ill._

_As I sat with the sobbing girl in my arms, I found it hard to let go of her, even with one arm. I extracted some tissues from my pocket. Pulling one from the packet, I cuddled her again as she took it from me. I didn't expect the tears to stop. I knew. She needed to cry. _

_At that moment, as selfish as it seemed, I felt something I had wished without end to feel since I was fourteen years old. _

_I felt like a mother._

* * *

"Nastiya..."

Dragon awoke with a start, his heart beating hard. Taking deep breaths, he reminded himself he was awake as the familiar sounds of Erce's kettle sang from the kitchen.

He closed his eyes and focussed on the powerful feeling inside him. They were her memories. They had to be, he had seen all of them through her eyes. No one else alive knew what had happened in that cellar that night. No one else knew what happened in the car on the way back to St. Petersburg. And at the House of Night of St. Petersburg... Had High Priestess Valentina really predicted their relationship? The frightening thing was, she had been right. They had met a few weeks after she arrived, late July to early August time. By December, they were head over heels in love.

And then that last feeling. The longing they both shared. Dragon felt like he was buzzing with energy, his heartbeats echoed around his mind, inspiring feelings of elation, confusion, exhilaration...

Their connection, which had been nulled almost to extinction, was open, strong, thriving as if it had its own heartbeat.

There was only one question left.

"_Nastiya, where are you???"_


	8. Another One and Only

_**Resurrected**_

* * *

**Me: Another one, more of a filler really. Let me know what you think of the OC. First one to guess what he's there for gets a cyber-hug! R&R!**

* * *

Dragon jumped out of his skin as the door to his room creaked open. Lenobia's pale face peered around it. She had the talent of looking incredibly fresh and awake, even when she definitely wasn't. "Oh good, you're awake..." she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, "You were dreaming again."

"Lenobia..." he said, a smile creeping onto his face, "I..." he covered his chest with his hand to stop his heart from jumping out, "Our connection it's... It's open."

She wrinkled her nose. "What???"

"I can feel it... What I dreamt, it was memories, her memories, things only she knows, her feelings. The things she is feeling right now..."

She looked stunned. "Can you hear her?"

"I'm listening, but I know she can hear me now."

Dragon knew she was out there, somewhere. The memories, and the powerful feelings provoked by them were current, but still, even though they were powerful, they were painful, memories she had previously always tried to put behind her. But the last feeling... It was something that had been rooted deep in both of their souls for a very long time. Something that was now more powerful than any spell could block. The absolute and unconditional longing for children.

"_Nastiya where are you???"_ he clutched his temples gently and closed his eyes.

He heard a voice from behind the door ask Lenobia if he was awake. Erce opened the door wider, and closed it behind them. So carefully, that neither Lenobia nor Dragon saw the heavily cloaked figure with a bow over his shoulder at the door.

"There's been a problem." She said.

* * *

"_Alejandro?"_

Zoey, still crying into Anastasia's shoulder, felt the petite vampyre flinch. Drawing back from her a bit, she saw her eyes were screwed shut in a deadly concentration.

Zoey sniffed, her fingers fumbling with the tissue. "Professor Anastasia, are you alright?"

There was no answer for a few seconds. "Zoey..." she said, her eyes began to leak tears, but this time they seemed to be tears of joy, "I think you were right..."

"What?"

"I can hear him."

Zoey's face lit up from under the red tearstains. "Really???"

Anastasia nodded, putting her fingertips to her temples. "It's faint though, but it's there!!!"

"Can you tell him where we are?"

"Let me try..." she said, closing her eyes and entering an almost meditative state.

"_Can you hear me?"_

* * *

For what seemed like the millionth time, everybody sat huddled in one room, in their pyjamas, their faces plastered with dread. Dragon, Lenobia and even Erce were present in their dressing-gowns, looking like their brains were about to explode.

"Zoey's gone?"

"Vanished into thin air!"

Lenobia covered her mouth. "Goddess help us..."

"So what do we know?"

"It was magical. No physical signs of breach at the doors, windows, not even the air vents. Her bedcovers were still as if she had disappeared from beneath them." Darius reported.

"I smell a rat." Said Erce.

"I smell Neferet." Aphrodite replied.

"Ah..."

Everyone turned around to look at Dragon, who was holding his head as if in pain, like a trance.

"Is he alright?" asked Darius worriedly, ready to leap to with a medical kit.

Lenobia put her hand on his shoulder. "The telepathic link with Anastasia is open again..." she said, making everyone gasp. She turned to him. "Dragon?" she asked, "Can you hear me?"

Darius was on his feet in a flash. "He needs medical attention."

Lenobia held up her hand, palm flat to him. "No." She said, "Let him be, he needs to concentrate."

"_Nastiya? Are you alright???"_

"_I'm weak, but I'm alright."_

"_Where are you???"_

"_Neferet took the necklace Papa gave me. I'm inside it, Zoey Redbird is with me."_

"_What??? How???"_

"_It's a spell! So she can use our energy, remember the fledglings' potion?"_

"_I don't understand... Are you alive?"_

"_Yes! But I am growing weak! I don't have a lot of time left! You have to break the spell!"_

"_How?"_

"_The only way I can think of is to kill Neferet, and you can't do that because Zoey is with me."_

"_Would Adélaïde Ségaèle know?"_

"_She might do."_

"_Is Zoey alright?"_

"_She is in one piece. Physically, at least."_

Dragon's eyes opened and he nearly lost his footing, surprise biting him harshly as his mind stumbled out of its trance. His vision was blurred, daytime hallucinations dancing across his eyes. He shook his head and wiped them gently.

"Can you hear me?"

It was Lenobia. "Yes." He answered, "Zoey... Zoey is with Anastasia."

Everyone suddenly jumped. "No!!!" shrieked Aphrodite, "You can't mean..."

"No..." said Dragon, holding out his palms, "They're alright, they're, they're alive."

"_What_???"

"What Maria was saying about a prison. And then all the visions about diamonds. It is a spell. Anastasia and Zoey are inside that necklace, acting as Neferet's power sources."

"But..." said Damien doubtfully, "How is that possible?"

Dragon concentrated again. "Anastasia says it is possible to magically trap someone inside an object of great sentimental value to them." He said, disgust filling his soul like thick sticky treacle as he realised the extent of the trickery, "We were all tricked into thinking she was dead."

"Is Zoey alright?" asked the Twins.

"Zoey, has, finally broken down." He said, seriousness lacing his voice, "But she is alive."

"I wondered when." Said Lenobia, "Her soul is broken, and yet she seemed to carry on these past few days like hardly anything was wrong. Trying to pretend that this isn't happening, it's a defence. That was coming, sooner or later, poor girl."

"So what do we do?" asked Stark.

"One way to instantly remove the spell is to kill Neferet." Said Dragon, "But with Zoey out of the picture that simply isn't an option. I'm calling Madame Ségaèle." He said, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

"Madame _who_?" Aphrodite spat.

"She is a vampyre I called to Tulsa to break Kalona's spell." Said Lenobia, "She taught Anastasia, and you, I believe, once upon a time Dragon."

"She pronounced me the worst spellcaster that she had ever had the poor fortune of working with." He said as he scrolled through his contacts, giving rise to a dim chuckle from the others, "I only pray she knows something."

"Put it on speaker-phone." Jack suggested.

Dragon raised an eyebrow. "You asked for it..." he said, "I hope none of you speak French."

"Why?"

"Her language is rather..." Dragon rolled the phone around in his hand, looking for the right word, "Colourful." he pressed the button and suddenly the dial of the phone became the only sound in the room.

"_Allo_?"

"Bon soir Madame."

Addressing his old Sorcery Mistress now felt odd. As a fledgling, she was always, without exception, Madame Ségaèle. Even as an adult vampyre, calling her anything else made him feel uncomfortable.

"_Monsieur Lankford? Qu'est ce que c'est?" _

Dragon wet his lip. Nastiya spoke French fluently. He however never seemed to get past the word 'champagne'. "Madame, I need your advice on something."

"_Mais mon cher, of course! What is it?"_

"Anastasia is alive."

There was a dead silence on the end of the phone. _"Quoi?"_

"We were, cleverly tricked." He said, the words falling from his mouth like poison as he spoke them, "Neferet captured her using Tsi Sgili magic and then used a spell to make a copy of her."

"_Ma Déesse... ça c'est foutu!"_ _My Goddess, that's fucked up._ The witch's surprise, and cussing, was expected. The copy had to have been good, to fool her mate of ninety years. Neferet was getting stronger. Cleverer.

Dragon ignored the swearing. "Neferet has captured her using a spell which causes the victim to be imprisoned in an object of their sentiment." He said, "Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"_I zhink zhe question is do you know what you are talking about, Monsieur Lankford, mais oui, I am familiar wiz zhis spell."_

"I need to know how to break it. Now!"

"_I am afraid zhat zhings like zhat do not come off zhe top of my 'ead!" _she said,_ "I will go and researche it immediately, but I fear zhese zhings I will not find in zhe House of Night's Library."_

"Do you think there would be an answer in the Vampyre Council's Library?"

The question seemed to catch her off guard. _"More zhan likely. But you could spend weeks, months, years searching in zhere, it is like zhe proverbial labyrinth. I will go to zhe books now – I will call you if I find anyzhing."_

"Thank you."

"_À bientôt."_

Dragon pressed the red button on his phone. "Easier said than done." He said, dropping it into his pocket, "How on Earth are we to get anywhere near the Library?"

"Where is the Library?" asked Jack.

Erce answered. "It's beneath the Council itself, in what used to be the cloisters." She said, "There is tight security, it is said to hold every secret to vampyre-life."

Aphrodite looked like James Bond about to embark on a mission. "Exactly, how tight?"

"Sons of Erebus on the doors at all times. Plus, there are the Librarians."

Aphrodite snorted and began to laugh out loud. "You cannot be serious! Ha!!! Ooh save us from the killer Librarians!!!" she heaved.

Erce, unfortunately, was. "It has never been my habit to make jokes." She said, "In order to become a Librarian in the Council Library you must have an elemental affinity, and also undergo fifty years training in armed and unarmed combat, and also in Sorcery."

Everyone stared. "Uh-oh..." said Damien, whistling a low note at Erce's statement.

"So how do we gain clearance?" asked Jack.

"We don't. Not with Kalona controlling everything they do. We wouldn't anyway, only High Priestesses are granted access."

"So it's a break-in job then?" everyone looked at Aphrodite, "What?" she asked, shrugging, "It's gonna be."

"It is my turn to call in a favour." Said Erce, taking out her phone, "I hope he can help."

* * *

The next few hours saw them all standing at the airport, watching the plane land as if it was their only lifeline. The flight crew pulled the door back, and the whole party, with the exception of Dragon, and Lenobia, whose pride did not permit such folly, stared at the figure walking down the steps to the ground. He was beautiful, with the dignity and elegance of a royal. He was tall, around six foot, his hair was the colour of copper, his eyes were a dark shade of grey. He wore black trousers and a black turtle-neck. His Mark was not dissimilar from Loren Blake's. Lightning bolts, however these looked like streaks of real lightening across a stormy sky.

Erce looked relieved. "Merry meet." She said, greeting him with the vampyre handshake.

"Merry meet, my friend." He said, addressing her in perfect English, his voice had a classical British accent, and was powerful, but soft, as if toned down for them. "What calls me here so urgently?"

"May I introduce the Swordmaster and Horse Mistress of Tulsa..." she said, gesturing to Dragon and Lenobia respectively, "Darius is a Son of Erebus, Aphrodite is a Prophetess. These are fledglings from the Tulsa House of Night, Erin, Shaunee and Damien have affinities for water, fire and air respectively."

"Merry meet." He said, shaking each of their hands in turn.

Erce continued as he stood back again. "Everyone, may I present Eliás Svoboda, High Priest of Prague."

* * *

"_**Him**_???"

"Yes, him." Said Erce sternly, giving the blond girl a very withering look.

Aphrodite's rudeness was horrific. "I've never heard of _that_ happening before."

Lenobia's famous chilling glare cut through Aphrodite like a dagger, silencing her immediately. Eliás' own gaze was sharp. He did not look offended, but he did look subtly pissed off. Lenobia guessed that if Erce was not already laying her teeth into the human girl, so to speak, that he would be giving her a piece of his mind himself.

"Despite the vampyre society being a matriarchal one, we do not run our males into the dirt as the humans have done with their females." Said Erce sharply, "It is an extremely rare occurrence, I agree, but he is fully worthy of the post. I'm surprised you haven't heard of him before."

"But, a High _Priest_?"

Erce nodded. "He has accreditation for the Library, making him invaluable at this moment."

Aphrodite snorted. "And is _he_ immune to Kalona?"

"I should think that being male and not having had half of his brain cells destroyed in combat he might stand a sporting chance."

Lenobia had heard of him, but never met him. He was currently the most famous male vampyre alive, on account of being the first ever male avatar of Nyx. She noted the impatience on his face, and signalled to Erce to start walking. She hadn't been sure what to expect. She had even half-expected him to laugh it off and be chatty with them about it, however he most certainly had not, his sternness quickly quietened the fledglings. Erce filled him in as they walked, and Lenobia smirked to herself as he fledglings had to work up a heartbeat to keep up with the long fast strides of the vampyres. At the back of the parade, the Twins were giggling.

"Twin, I'd hit that any day..." whispered Shaunee.

"Absolutely Twin."

"Nerd Herd..." Aphrodite interrupted, keeping her voice down, still pissed off at Lenobia's ability to render her more than silent as the grave, "He's a High _Priest_. That position is always taken by a woman. It's like a man working as a women's shoe designer. What are the chances he's not gay?" Jack and Damien perked up at that. "Forget I said anything." Said Aphrodite disgustedly. They began listening again as Erce asked him about the spell.

He gave a small frown. "I am afraid I do not know the answer." He said, "But I do know where I can find it."

Indeed, Eliás was unlike any male vamp they had ever met. He was not ridiculously effeminate or physically weak, as Aphrodite had expected, not at all. Nor was he ridiculously charming, as Loren Blake had been, and nor was he like the overly polite Sons of Erebus. He was polite, yes, but straightforward. Direct and to the point. But no one could imagine him holding doors open for people or swearing Warrior's Oaths to anyone. He seemed to be a taller version of Dragon, except power radiated from beneath his skin. As they listened to him speak it became clear why Nyx had gifted him like She had. He immediately commanded respect whenever he so much as looked at somebody.

"I was wondering when this would arise." He said, "Venice has had Seers, Prophetesses, claiming something like this was going to happen. None were fully accurate, it seems." He turned his head to the castle in the distance, where the Raven Mockers circled the towers as if the place belonged to them. "What have they permitted to happen?"

There was a silence. No one wanted to describe it.

He raised an eyebrow in an almost cheeky gesture. "I suppose you'll be wanting something from the Library?"


	9. Der Blitzkrieg

_**Resurrected**_

* * *

**Me: Hi guys! Okay, here's the next one, there may not be another up so soon, as my computer has to go away to be repaired, so I dunno when I'll get it back, but it shouldn't be too long. Hopefully. Thank you to everyone who's reviewed!!! **

**Notes: kay, a bit on World War Two here. The Hitler Himmler reference refers to Nazi Germany, Himmler was the Head of the SS, a sneak with far too much power, and Hitler, of course, was the leader, the Führer. Read it to see what I mean lol. **

* * *

A trip to the Library was not something that Eliás Svboda usually considered a dangerous task.

It was a rare necessity to come here, let alone be urgently invited. Besides that, he had never actually had an instance in which the Library in Venice had not given him the answers he needed. Despite that, every once in a while, he liked to come here. He could bury himself in the tomes for hours, and every time he would come out a little wiser. He would not be able to take any books out of the Library, that was not allowed, but it mattered little to him. He could glance at a page for five seconds, and then shut the book and recite it word for word. Humans called a photographic memory. He inwardly sighed to himself. Libraries were supposed to be serene places, he questioned again and again, as he walked amongst the stone bookshelves, his gaze taking in every title of every book, why it was that he felt like even the slightest echo from his slow, careful steps off the archaic stone walls, could set off a minefield.

Talking.

He narrowed his eyes, and kept walking. Speaking was absolutely forbidden in the Library, and yet he had seen at least three Librarians walk past him and so far there hadn't been so much as a fireball thrown. They had gone soft. Walking out from the row of shelves, and about to walk down the next, the words finally caught his attention.

"I do not understand how but I will get rid of her!!!"

"My Queen, such obsessions are unnecessary, why waste such a good source of power?"

"Because she is _annoying _me that's why!!!"

The man sounded annoyed himself. "You have explored these books for days. Ignore her. Drain her dry if you will. I do not understand why you do not simply kill her."

There was a sigh of impatience. "Because I need a different power source, depending on what I am trying to do! My own system cannot take such _good _magic all at once!"

The snarl in the voice sent chills down Eliás' spine. The word 'good' was said with such poison he felt it in his own blood. Still, he continued walking. He hadn't intended to walk right out onto them and even as he thought he had gone unnoticed, his defence systems warned him to put even more distance between him and them. The woman's face was familiar. The man's was not, however a man with wings would not stay anonymous for long. He was obviously Kalona. And she, High Priestess Neferet. He had only seen her in passing, but had never spoken with her, rather due to her not wanting to speak with him. A few of the more traditional High Priestesses saw his position as insulting, he had only ever presumed that she was one of them. Just as he thought he was invisible again, the man spoke.

"You!"

He stopped, and raised his mental barriers, before turning around and remerging from the columns. "Yes?"

"How do you come to be here?" asked Kalona, flexing his wings threateningly, his eyes looked intrigued and curious.

"I am the High Priest of Prague." He answered simply.

Kalona suddenly seemed to be concealing a fascination, his wings relaxed, at one point twitching, whereas Neferet quickly delved back to her book. "Really?" he said, looking to Neferet, who wore a repulsed expression. "Your name?"

"Eliás Svboda. And yours?"

Neferet growled. "How _dare _you???" she hissed. Kalona shot her a dangerous glare.

"I am Erebus, my child."

The High Priest remained calm. "With all due respect, I am not one of your children."

Kalona made eye-contact with him, and he stood his ground. He lowered the barriers on his mind, and focussed as he concocted another version of events, in which he had heard nothing, and allowed it to fill his mind so powerfully it would have fooled a lie detector. After a moment, Kalona seemed satisfied.

"I give you my respect, High Priest." He said, "Your accomplishments are great feats. Go on your way."

Eliás gave a small, forced smile and nodded. "Thank you." He said, before turning away and continuing down the shelves, quickly removing himself from sight. Silently, he thanked Nyx. As he did so, he could hear Neferet hissing at the winged man.

It was for precisely that cunning, that he was a High Priest.

* * *

"This is rich. I thought the British were known for their laziness. How can you write so fast?"

The pen in Eliás' hand suddenly stopped dead. He mentally rolled his eyes at the human girl, but forced himself to remain impassive. "I'm not British."

The Twins wore a blank face. "Well ya sound British."

"I'm Czech." He said, as if within his tone he was trying to emphasise their every stupidity, not even lifting his gaze from the page on which he was writing.

"Prague is the capital of the Czech Republic?" said Damien with an eyebrow raised at the Twins and Aphrodite, "Please tell me you knew that." They all looked at him blankly. "Great."

Somewhere, a mobile phone rang. Eliás fished into his pocket and flipped it open to his ear. "Ahoj..."

The language that came from his mouth so fast they could barely make out individual sounds sounded Slavic, the phonetics were so different that even his voice had changed. He lowered his eyes, and continued to speak, pausing occasionally to let the other person get a word in sideways.

At that moment, Lenobia came in from the kitchen carrying a plate of snacks for them, setting it down on the coffee table. Erce and Dragon were preparing food for the fledglings. The latter could cook, the former, unfortunately, despite being Italian, could not. At all. Therefore Lenobia was keen to get back to the kitchen to supervise her fellow horsewoman. It wasn't fair to leave anyone with Erce in a kitchen. This, she knew from experience.

The flowing sound of a foreign language drifted softly into her ears. She listened to the Czech High Priest speaking in what they all thought to be rushed gibberish, her eyes flickering backwards as she stood up straight again. It looked to the others like she could understand him.

Erin pulled a funny face. "So where is it?"

Damien blinked and thought for a moment. "Go to Germany, and take a right-turn."

"I thought all of Nyx's avatars had to have a magical affinity..." said Aphrodite, this time less abruptly.

The man's eyes flashed at her and he held up his index finger, as if asking her to wait, before he brought the conversation to an end and hung up. "What's to say I don't?" he said, finally putting his pen down and turning his chair so he was facing them, his eye-contact was solid.

The girls jumped out of their skins as the light went out, and then on, and then out again. The light-bulb flashed and flickered, far brighter than it should be, before shattering completely, sending shards of glass showering down to the floor. The girls screamed as bolts of electricity filled the room, dancing around their faces in the air, the bright blue light illuminating their forms in the dark. They could even feel the sheer power of electrical charge, their hair beginning to stand on end.

Suddenly, the lamps on the tables in Erce's apartment came on, and the electricity faded into nothing. Eliás' expression remained completely stable, his eyes not even moving from the three girls.

"I can invoke and control any kind of electrical energy. Anything from lightning itself to AC or DC to electromagnetic fields." He said, snapping his fingers and causing the lights to flash again, "It's called Electrokinesis."

All of the girls were too speechless to even begin contemplating forming a sentence. Apart from Damien, this vamp was the only male they had ever seen display a magical affinity.

"Woah... You're like, Storm from the X-Men." Said Shaunee.

He stopped himself from making another sarcastic gesture, despite the temptation. "I can't manifest lightning from the sky." He said, "Only through my body."

"Er, why?"

He sighed. "Because lightning in the sky is caused by friction between air currents. Something I have no control over. However I can still control sky-lightning, if it manifests itself."

"I see Eliás is demonstrating." Said Erce, emerging from the kitchen carrying plates of crisps and snack-foods with Dragon not far behind her. "And you can replace that light-bulb, it was new. Shocking, isn't it girls?"

"Yeah..."

"Is that the page?" asked Lenobia, peering over the High Priest's shoulder.

"And how can you be sure that was what was written on the page?" asked Aphrodite.

"I have, a very photographic memory." He said simply, continuing to write onto the paper. "And Lenobia, yes it is."

"We have little time left."

Although Eliás' face remained impassive, Lenobia had realised that his feelings leaked through his voice. "We have even less than that." He said grimly, "I saw them in the Library."

"Kalona and Neferet???" he nodded, "Did they see you?"

"Yes."

"Oh no..."

"Don't be concerned." He said, "They don't suspect."

"I shan't insult your intelligence." Said Lenobia, "But how can you know that?"

"Kalona let me pass." He said simply.

Dragon couldn't believe his ears. "Why?"

Eliás gladly received a mug of coffee from Erce, and took a sip. "Kalona bears the same weakness as any repressed individual." He said, "I regret to say that we do not live in a Utopian society, no matter what your textbooks may lead you to believe. As the humans have their problems, we have ours. Social, political problems to which there seem to be no answers. Nowadays it is easy to be a fledgling." He took another sip. It was like the coffee replenished him almost as much as blood did, "The human and vampyre worlds have adapted alike. We both aim for equality, in a way. Even a mere fifty years ago, the shift from a patriarchal human society to a matriarchal vampyre one was enormous. We were ahead of them in our development, of course, but there was serious development to be done. Throughout the course of history, vampyres have abused their males as humans have abused their females. We are not perfect. It doesn't matter who the abused and abusers are." He continued. Suddenly, he turned to directly look at Lenobia, "In World War Two, Lenobia..." The Horse Mistress looked as if something has struck a nerve, "The Jewish people had unrequited respect for the Resistance, any of you, simply because you were someone, with a shared cause, but in a position of power. And before any of the fledglings knew about Neferet, all the girls coming into your House of Night admired her."

Lenobia looked almost bitter. "Carry on." She said.

"Do not misunderstand..." he said, "I would die before I shared Kalona's cause, and I am not in a position of power over him. But, being a male from, shall we say, traditional times, he respected me. Simply because I am cursed with male genitalia."

"You mean he just let you walk on by?" asked Aphrodite.

"Absolutely."

"That man really has issues."

"And Neferet didn't say anything?"

Eliás thought for a moment. "She disagreed." He said, "But she did not dare displease him."

"Automatic immunity, for having a pair." Aphrodite snorted.

"Eat something." Said Erce, as she poured out some wine into glasses, "Feed your minds. Wine isn't a bad idea either."

Dragon picked up his glass and smelled the wine gently, before making a face as if it was stagnant water. "I can't." He said.

"You need your strength." Said Erce earnestly.

Dragon shot Lenobia a look which almost begged 'do I have to?' She answered it with one that said 'you know what I'll say'. Slowly, as if it were poison, he raised it to his lips and took a sip. Like he was in pain, he swallowed it quickly and screwed his eyes shut at the taste. It almost was painful. He placed his hand on his stomach as if to stop himself from being sick.

"That is disgusting." He said, taking deep breaths, and putting the glass back on the table. It was the first time he had had blood in almost a week, and even longer since he had had blood that was not hers. In fact, not since before she Changed, six months after him. Anonymous blood had never tasted the same since he had first tasted hers. She had drank from him first. She was a Russian girl, the many times great niece of his mentor, who had been brought to his House of Night in Spain to escape the Revolution in her home country. Communicating with her was difficult, as she spoke barely a word of Spanish. The memories made him smile. Her cat had found its way into his dorm one night and she had come to retrieve it. She wanted to change a dressing on its leg. He remembered the horror he felt when he saw her begin to reject the Change, and not hesitating to slash his wrist – he could save her if she drank blood before her own was spilled. He remembered the sheer ecstasy when she drank, neither of them could control it, to this day, he still couldn't. The frenzy consumed them, he remembered drinking from her as they made love. No other blood had ever been the same. He didn't notice it at first, but the more times they drank from each other the more vile other blood became, within a year of them both being Changed, anything else was unpalatable. "It'll do me more harm than good, that."

"Straight off the Italian vines, not even I complained at that." Said Aphrodite smugly.

"We need to get back onto track." Said Lenobia, "What does the page say?"

"It suggests that use magic to swap their places, that won't work, as Neferet could probably switch them back again. The other alternative is this one." He said, jabbing the paper with the end of the pen.

Lenobia read the words aloud. "Spell to free someone from a sentiment trinket..." she said, "Must be read willingly by the person whosoever imprisoned the victim." She looked confused, "How is that an alternative?"

He sipped his coffee again. "I am trying to determine whether or not Neferet's power is bound to her body or to her soul." He said, clutching his chin, "If it is bound to her soul then her soul has to read the spell. But if it is bound to her body, only her body has to read it."

Lenobia was quick to catch on. "Do you mean... Are there spells out there that can control minds?"

"Tsi Sgili spells have to be undone by Tsi Sgili Magic." He said, "But how much resides in her physical body? And is it enough?"

"Kalona once said to her that her Tsi Sgili powers were turning her into something immortal." Said Aphrodite, "There has to be a magical, at the very least an energy reservoir inside her due to the cellular mutations."

"Eh?"

"It may come as a shock to you, but I was good at Science once." She snapped. "But how do you mind-control one of the most intuitive vamps in the world?"

"I wasn't talking about mind-control." Said Eliás, "We have two friendly ghosts at our disposal. I think it's time we held a séance."

* * *

"But... Neferet got Zoey! We've got no Earth!"

"You don't need an elemental circle to see spirits." Said Eliás. "Even humans are doing it now."

"_Oh come on everyone, at least act like some things are possible!"_

They looked around. "Who said that?"

"_Me!"_

A puff of mist flew up through the floorboards, taking the form of the boy from before.

"Alexej, you're eavesdropping now?"

"_I was bored."_

"Where's Maria?"

The boy smiled. _"Taking care of um, stuff."_

"Neferet?"

"_Er, yes."_

"Neferet is still confused between your spirits and Anastasia's." Said Eliás. "And we have an idea how we can free her. But we need your help."

Alexej looked intrigued. _"Go on."_

"We need you to possess her. And then read a spell whilst in her body."

"_Oh just that."_

"Please, Alexej!"

"_I can't take control of her body for very long..."_ he said, _"And you know that when I can't hold her anymore she's going to come after you."_

"We'll have to fight her there and then." Lenobia realised.

"We can't." Said Dragon. "They will be weak after being released, we cannot protect them and fight at the same time."

"This may sound stupid, but would it be possible to do it in her sleep and then convince her she was dreaming?" asked Jack.

"It _does_ sound stupid." Said Aphrodite, "By the way, does the necklace necessarily have to be in her possession at the time the spell is said?" asked Aphrodite.

Eliás shook his head. "Not necessarily."

Her face lit up. "Now I was excited about the killer Librarians, but this is going to be much more fun..."

"What?"

"Two can play at this game! Don't you see? We make a copy of the necklace, and swap it for the real one. Then we get Alexej or Maria to take control of Neferet, and she'll think it was all a little nightmare!"

"I thought you said it sounded stupid."

"Oh it is, if it wasn't it would probably never work." Said Eliás. "I know the duplication spell."

"Well aren't you full of surprises." Aphrodite said.

"It is the subject that I teach."

She looked unimpressed. "What are you, some kind of super-vamp?"

He gave her a glare. "That's the general idea."

* * *

"Coffee?"

Lenobia had barely heard the door open behind her. Erce's garden had a fantastic view of the island, it was so beautiful, even more so in the sunlight. What Eliás had said about the war, it brought back memories. Even through the differences between the worlds, she could see history repeating itself like a CD set to replay. It was him behind her, holding a mug of hot coffee for her.

"Caffeine is useless to vampyres." She said, "Like alcohol."

He sat on the garden bench opposite her, putting the mug down on the table in front of her. "Pity really. I could do with a drink."

"Why bother to drink it?"

"I like the taste." He said, taking his own mug in his hands.

"Despite being acquired?"

"I remember what it was like then when coffee was such a luxury..." he mused, "And then after we were all just so happy to have it. It soothes me." He paused for a moment, "I touched a nerve." He said, "I'm sorry."

"You just brought up some old memories, things I thought I'd forgotten." She said, "And now as I look back I can see it all happening again."

"What happening again?"

"You know, that's how the Nazis were voted in." She said, finally picking up her cup, "It was brainwashing. They were going to make the world a better place. Everyone thought they were wonderful, until they got in. They destroyed us."

"I know."

She shook her head, more to herself than to him. "Whenever I look at Kalona and Neferet..." she said, "All I see is Hitler and Himmler."

"But you were in the Resistance, you didn't buy it."

"It was us against the world." She said, "And, to be frank, I understand why we were such a small movement. It wasn't about, doing what was right. It was about surviving to see tomorrow. If you were caught to be doing what we were, you were shot. You wouldn't go home to your family and children that night. They'd probably be shot too. Anyone who wasn't brainwashed was frightened." She lowered her head a little, "The deaths of millions of anonymous people, numbers, whom they never knew, were preferable to not seeing the smile on your little daughter's face at the end of your shift."

"You did it because you had no one."

"Nothing to lose." She said, shrugging, "I suppose. There were several vamps. But we couldn't even put a dent in the death toll."

"You rescued quite a lot of children, if I remember correctly."

"It was all we could do, at the end of the day." She said, finally sipping her coffee, "Children with "undocumented parentage", so to speak, easy to smuggle out to France." Lenobia's voice trailed off to nothingness. She sighed, and every one of her troubles seemed to fall out, floating in the air between them.

"Is that how you were shot?"

Lenobia stared. "How do you know about that?"

"We had our Resistance too." He said, "The House of Night was used as a base and as a hospital. I wasn't the High Priest then, but I was using it as a base to research a university thesis. We had a telegram from the French informing us that the German vampyres in the Resistance were discovered."

She bit her lip. "It was only bad luck." She said, "We were caught. It wasn't even a flaw of ours. It was just a case of, wrong place, wrong time. Of course gunfire ensued."

"You were all brought to Prague for treatment." He said, "I saw you there."

She looked at him like he was the proverbial oracle. "You saw me?"

He lowered his eyes in memory. "I went to the Infirmary, to fetch a box of rubber gloves, I was doing a Chemistry degree project, had my shed laboratory and everything. I saw you there, along with six other vampyres being treated for gunshot wounds." He said, holding up his thumb and his index finger close together, "You must have taken at least thirty shots to the torso. You were this close to dying, it's a miracle you didn't."

"When I heard you talking on the phone, I thought I'd heard your voice somewhere before..." she said, "I had no idea where or if I even had, I've heard the voices of many men, I didn't recognise it at first, as the British phonetics are so different. That must have been where."

"They operated for ten hours to get all the bullets out of you. I'm surprised you heard me, you were out cold for most of it."

"I was so lucky." She said, tracing the scar on her neck with her fingers, "This..." she said, showing him briefly, "Was where they had to cut to get a bullet out." She flicked her long hair over her shoulder again, "I was told I wouldn't walk again. I was a fool."

"Why?"

"For being caught." She replied, "It never mattered how many we saved... There were always more. It wasn't enough. There was always one more, screaming at us from behind those metal gates."

"A handful of people cannot stop a war, Lenobia."

Finally, she turned to face him, her stormy eyes the ultimate contrast to the perfect summer's day around them. "Then what are we doing here?"

"I don't suppose you follow boxing?" she shook her head again, "Nor do I, but it was interesting to learn that this year's heavy-weight world champion had to beat a man over seven foot with his brain. He was so fast the Russian giant never got a punch in. There are ways."

"It's a little bit bigger than boxing. We're sending fledglings, children, into a war! It doesn't matter that they aren't normal fledglings!" she clutched her forehead, leaning her elbow against the table, "I can't understand why they've kept adjourning this damn Council."

"Neferet probably wants us to attack first." He suggested. "To make us look like criminals." Lenobia snorted, "Aphrodite wants to lead some kind of Mission Impossible to retrieve the necklace." He said, "We need to make Zoey and Anastasia our priority. Because without them Neferet instantly loses her innocent guise." He continued, holding up his mug as if to say 'cheers'. "Your expertise in breaking and entering Nazi-style might come in handy."

She blinked and her eyebrows danced upwards for a moment, as if she were absorbing a piece of information that she had completely and utterly expected. "Ah... The Czech Republic remembers that..."

"Absolutely."

"There is only one thing left." She said.

"And what is that?"

"All that is left..." she said, "Is to see." She paused again, wetting her lip, "Who is Himmler, and who is Hitler."


	10. Another stop on the bus route

_** Resurrected**_

* * *

**Me: Hi guys! Sorry for the wait, my computer's now back and I'm raring to write. I've been writing bits and bobs of these next events over the past week, so the next chapter should be up pretty quickly. Just wanna say have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!! Love you all!!! **

* * *

The day was absolutely still. Nothing stirred, not even the air amongst the grassy plain between the House of Night and the castle. The Sun was at full height, sending beams of hot light onto everything it could reach. Lenobia strode back inside the French windows, letting Eliás close them behind them. There were so many questions unanswered. What would they do about Kalona? Would Neferet even be asleep at all??? All this was too risky.

"Dragon..." she said, sitting down with the fledglings, "Can Anastasia tell whether or not Neferet is sleeping?"

Dragon concentrated for a moment. "Yes. But she never sleeps for very long. An hour, at most."

"Right." She said, "The clock's running."

"How do we even get in?"

"Firstly, we need to ascertain _who _is getting in." Lenobia said, picking up a piece of paper and scribbling names down on it, "Stark will burn crisper than something off Erce's barbeque in sunlight, so he's out." Erce looked annoyed.

"We all will." Said Damien concernedly.

Damien was right. Fledglings wouldn't cope in the light. She realised it had to be the adults, or Aphrodite. "Apply that to all fledglings... We are left with Aphrodite, Darius, Dragon, Erce, Eliás and myself." She pulled a face. She knew that Erce and herself were as good as useless, as were Darius and Dragon. Formidable warriors they were, but they couldn't protect the girl from Neferet's magic."

Eliás stood behind her. "I will go." He said, "I will accompany Aphrodite."

Aphrodite raised an eyebrow. "Fine. But how do we get in?"

"Does anyone have any belts in their suitcases?" he asked.

"Why?"

"If you wear two across your chest like a harness..." he said, "The buckles are metal. I can lift you in through the window by generating electric fields. Unfortunately, the only drawback is that Neferet will probably be wearing it, if it is so important."

"I don't suppose you can manipulate diamond as well can ya?"

Dragon answered. "It is set in gold." He said, "The clasps are gold as well."

Eliás looked thoughtful. "Gold is tricky, it's incredibly inert. I won't be able to move it much."

"You don't have to." Said Lenobia, "Just undo the clasp and move it away from her. You can carry it back here."

"Another problem." He said, "The duplication spell won't work unless the necklace is present."

"Not unless we create one from memory." Said Dragon, "I know what it's like."

"What about Kalona?"

There was a silence. What indeed about Kalona? He wouldn't hesitate to kill them if he found them.

"Anastasia says Kalona doesn't sleep at all, so the chances that he will be there cuddling her are slim." Dragon added, sighing, "I can't believe we're doing this..."

* * *

"Don't you _dare_ drop me!"

Aphrodite held her breath. Not because of the sea air which smelled so different to what she was used to, but because she was about to effectively scale a Cliffside. In theory, that was the plan. She and the adult vampyres were standing on the sand of the beach, the same one which Zoey had told her about when she jumped off the side of the cliff rather than be with Kalona. The Czech High Priest ignored her completely as he focussed his power. The belts crossed over her shoulders began to lift, taking her with them. "Careful!" she hissed.

"Alright, Prophetess?" asked Eliás somewhat sarcastically, lifting himself up too.

"Just go!"

He nodded, and closed his eyes. Suddenly, they were flying upwards. It was like being in a lift without walls. She felt the charge buzz through her hair again. "Do you mind???" she said.

He ignored her again and concentrated, holding his hands out a little, palms flat, as if he were signalling to go up. They slowed as they approached a balcony, and Aphrodite felt herself lifted up and placed, as lightly as a feather, on the floor of the balcony. Elias followed, and watched tentatively as she peeked around the drapes that were blowing gently in the breeze.

"All clear." she mouthed, holding out a hand and ushering him forwards.

The room was enormous, it should have belonged to royalty. Intricate designs carved in every inch of stone that made up the walls and ceiling captured the eye wherever they looked. Only the sound of Neferet's voice could pull their gazes away. Elias immediately positioned himself between Aphrodite, his fingers tingling, even sparking, as he prepared to have to strike.

Thank the Goddess, he didn't have to. She was speaking, yes, but not through consiousness. What came out of her mouth was mostly gibberish, the occasional half-scream, and almost what sounded like sobs.

Cautiously, Elias approached her, his mind beginning to look for the electrons in the gold clasp. "Don't forget to look for the other items." he whispered. Aphrodite nodded, and turned to the dressing table, silently opening all the doors.

Elias' concentration was brutal. Working on a tiny pice of metal that he couldn't even see was proving difficult. He could feel Aphrodite's glare in his back telling him to get a move on. It didn't help that Neferet was wearing another necklace - a short choker. Neither did it help that she seemed to be having some kind of nightmare. She groaned and screamed, murmuring more gibberish and tossing and turning. He felt the metal clasps come apart, and slowly, putting as much charge through the gold setting necklace as he could, he made it hover above Neferet's neck, praying one of her thrashing arms wouldn't catch it.

"Grab it!" he hissed, his power flowing out of him fast - gold was so inert, inducing any electric charge in it at all was taking almost all of the energy he had. Aphrodite was quick to act, snatching it out of the air and holding in an expletive when she discovered the metal was hot from the charge. Pulling the fake out, he gently laid it onto her neck and clasped it. Phasing back into full consciousness, he closed his eyes and relaxed. His senses tingled, and his face deteriorated. Whilst inducing charge in the necklace they wanted, he had automatically induced a charge in the choker as well. If it wasn't gold...

The former High Priestess stirred, a snatch of her head, and Elias knew they were both doomed.

As Sod's Law would have it, the clasp of the choker were not gold. She let out a shriek and sat up like a shot, pulling the necklace from her skin as the burning metal ate into her skin. As the broken choker lay in her hands, she looked up at the intruders.

Aphrodite froze.

Fuck.

"W...Wh... What are you doing in here?"

Elias flew to Aphrodite's side, ready to grab her and jump out of the window. He looked back at Neferet.

She flinched.

She, _flinched_?

At his sudden movement. She shot back in a panic, her back flat against the headboard of the bed, her hands gripping the sheets, her face whiter than a ghost's. Just as Elias placed himself between them, Neferet looked around the room with an almost childlike curiosity. "Where... Where am I?" she asked them, terror leaking through her voice like poison into a lake. She was breathing hard, and tears began to run down her face.

Elias stood like a statue between them, as Aphrodite peered out from around him to look at the drivelling woman before her as she broke down into tears.

"Crocodile tears Neferet?" she asked in her usual fashion, cocking her head to the side, before turning to the window to go, "Come on!"

Neferet's face was as if she had lost all hope. "It's always the same..." she said, her tears running away into nothing.

Aphrodite now stood at Elias' side. "Maria? Alexej? That's not funny."

Neferet curled up into a tight ball over her pillow, leaning her head on her knee. "I will never get out of here."

Aphrodite looked sceptical. "What the fuck are you on about Neferet?"

Neferet looked up at Aphrodite. "I am not Neferet." she said, her gaze setting fast onto the emblem belonging to Loren Blake, before turning her face away.

Elias glared. "What?" he almost spat, softening his gaze a little. He took slow steps towards her, "Who are you?"

Her eyes suddenly widened and her face returned to one of panic. "She's waking up!!!" she hissed, pointing frantically towards the window, "Go, go!!!!"

Eliás didn't need telling twice. Grabbing Aphrodite, he ran for the window, jumping from the balcony and falling freely towards the beach below. Aphrodite would have screamed, if his voice in her ear had not threatened her not to. Eliás summoned what energy he had left and brought them to a gentle landing onto the soft sand below.

"Are you alright?"

It was Lenobia's voice. Her eyes briefly made contact with Eliás'. "You look less serene than your usual."

"We have another problem."

"You've got it?" asked Darius, as they all turned and ran.

Aphrodite pulled Anastasia's beloved diamond necklace from her pocket. "Maria..." she called out into the thin air, "We're ready!"

* * *

_Dragon's POV_

_

* * *

_

It was right there on the table.

Simply seeing it, simply knowing that it was there, in front of me. It made me think of her more. Her smile could have powered a third world country when I brought it back to her.

Russia was ridiculously cold. Why exactly I wanted to go there, I wasn't sure. I had been all over Europe since I had Changed, five months before. Russia was simply another stop on a bus route. I went to St. Petersburg, which had, by that time, been renamed Petrograd by Lenin. There was a sadness that I seemed to inhale as I breathed, one that didn't come back up when I exhaled mist into the freezing atmosphere. It was still horrendously dangerous, a danger I walked numbly through, maybe because of the cold, maybe because the knowledge that I was no longer a human felt like immunity.

No longer human...

It hit me hard like the gale of wind blowing in my face. I shivered. To look back on what I felt, thought then, I remembered the confusion inside me. I was afraid. Easily. I was not brave like she was. I feared that my life might now not be completely my own, the concept of the future so solid, when I didn't want it to be yet. I was frightened by the unatural feelings I found myself staring at. The feral growl that arose in my throat when any other fledglings looked at her, even those that had been my friends since the Third Form, part of me became wild, a vampyre of lore. The heart-arrest that occured when she smiled at me, the part of me that no longer belonged solely to me, the part of her that I shared. My absolute control over my own life was gone. I had thought that by travelling a little would help me clear my head, understand a little better. Mere weeks into my travels I was the pathetic picture of a vampyre pining. That in itself frightened me. I was a vampyre, it didn't change the fact that, no matter how mature I wanted to be, or how mature I thought I was, I was male, and not yet twenty.

Reading the Russian newspapers was, for me, a fairly useless act. The letters on the page didn't form in my head. They made about as much sense as my own feelings. The pictures were still there though. The clearest parts that shined through the jumble. I couldn't understand why, at the time, there were so many pictures of the same people. In every picture there was a large family, the same family every time. With a tiny little boy, and four girls, and a mother, and a father, most of the pictures were. Why my gaze kept being drawn back to that picture I didn't know, there was just, something. I shook it out of my head and didn't think further about it until I saw another picture in that paper, as I stood with my back against a street wall. It was dated 1915, and showed two girls sitting with a group of injured soldiers at a hospital.

I had to blink.

A little younger, and not yet Marked, but it was her. It was Nastiya. I glared at the page. It _was _her. She was smiling for the camera, her wavy chestnut brown hair cascading over her shoulders. I tried again to read the caption beneath the picture, desperate for it to make sense. How stupid.

"Are you alright, Mr. Lankford?"

The voice was female, and speaking English, although not without an accent. My father was English, yet having grown up in Spain, with a Spanish mother, English still felt like a foreign language. I looked up, to see a tall woman standing in front of me. The fact that she was wearing a sleeveless dress in subzero conditions told me that she was a vampyre before her Mark did.

"May I help you?" I asked.

"Forgive me." she said, "My name is Valentina. I am the High Priestess of St. Petersburg's House of Night. Or, Petrograd's, I should say." she added sarcastically.

I gave a bow and shook her hand. "It is a pleasure, High Priestess."

She looked at the newspaper in my hand. "Yes, awful news isn't it?" she said sharply, turning over to the front page, "All the country wants to read in the morning is misery and despair. Or worse, lies altogether. It is extremely disrespectful to the Tsar and his family."

"The Tsar?"

I was so clueless. So blissfully clueless.

"Yes, he and his family were assassinated, almost a year ago now." she said solemnly, "I'm sure you've heard. But now people have to throw rumours around left right and centre, that one or more of his children might have survived." she pointed to the headline, "They've had so many fakes appear out of the woodwork it's despicable. It is no way to honour the memory of those children."

"I agree." I said, before pausing, "Valentina, would you please read something for me?"

She smiled. "But of course."

I opened the page to the picture of Nastiya. "What does the picture caption say?"

"Hm..." she peered closer to see the text, before turning to me and smiling, too knowingly, "It was taken in 1915, in Tsarkoye Selo hospital, it shows some wounded men sitting with the Tsar's two youngest daughters, the Grand Duchess Maria and the Grand Duchess Anastasia."

I looked back to the picture of the family, how like the Tsar she looked, and then at the littlest girl...

It was her.

But how?

My nineteen year-old brain had only just, just, registered the fact that I was in love with her. As I sat in Erce's flat, meandering in my thoughts, I could see it clearly, but at the time, admitting it, even just to myself, was the hardest thing I had ever had to do to that date. My breath stopped as I remembered something else. Mihailov. He was half Russian, I had heard High Priestess Rosalina mention he had been a part of the Russian Imperial Family. Until he was Marked, that is.

Nastiya, _my _Nastiya, the Grand Duchess of Imperial Russia?

Valentina must have thought I was either thick, or deaf. Possibly both. She smiled again, this time even more knowingly. Like she knew. Could she possibly know?

"How did you know my name?" I suddenly asked, not sure where the question had come from. She had used my name, I had never seen her before in my life.

"As you are gifted with unimaginable talent with a sword, I am gifted with the abilities of Precognition, and of Empathy." she said, "I can see, and sense, things, particularly feelings, before they occur." deciding to let me wallow in this for a minute, she dove into her pocket and pulled out a necklace. That necklace. "This is hers." said Valentina, holding it out towards me, "It means a lot to her. Will you take it back to her?"

I took it from her. "Yes." I had said.

And now it was before me again. I felt stakes through my heart as I remembered her face when she first saw it. When I presented her with the newspaper picture, and she burst into tears. All those moments.

And now, I was presented with the chance to bring her back. I couldn't stop the fear that consumed me and ripped me to shreds like a black hole. She was weak - would she survive? Goddess forbid that any Raven Mocker should hurt her again. We were going into war. Neither of us may ever go home. But what I did know, was that I couldn't have her back, and then have to say goodbye again.

I knew. Even without the true rift of death between us, the mere illusion of it had broken me. I couldn't do it. We were one. Without her, there was no me.

I knew what I had always known. That I would rather be with her in the next world, than without her in this one.


	11. Understanding

_**Resurrected**_

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**Me: Okay, so much much sooner than predicted hahahaha Merry Christmas everyone!!!!! I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna get another chapter up before the big day lol ^^**

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_Anastasia's POV_

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As I sat there, still holding Zoey close, I only wished I knew what was transpiring outside. I listened for my husband. All I heard was a mixture of confused feelings. Like he was so frightened that this chance wasn't real. How much I wanted to tell him, soothe him, hold him. I suppose I could have spent my time in here imagining how the end should have gone, one last kiss, one last touch, one last fencing match that he would undoubtedly win, one last stupid pathetic bantered argument about who had eaten the last of the Ben & Jerry's. I loved him more than I could describe in the English language, or the Russian one, nor Spanish nor French nor German. In fact I couldn't, there wasn't a language alive nor dead that could. His flashbacks entered my head, and I thought once more of when I met High Priestess Valentina. Such a hard person for someone able to predict emotions. She liked to make everything a riddle. I began to wonder if she had foreseen this as well. I thought of Maria and Alexej, Neferet confusing me with them. I inwardly laughed. I taught them everything them knew about sabotage. Because I was the imp. The shvibzik. I had read an article once, written by the son of our doctor. Dr Botkin, had, as everyone else I held dear, perished in that cellar in 1918. His son, Gleb, had written that I "undoubtedly held the record for punishable deeds in my family, for in naughtiness I was a true genius". In fact, Wikipedia accredited me with having once rolled a rock into a snowball during one of our many snowball fights and bowling out my sister Tatiana. I had never met Gleb, nor the person who wrote the Wikipedia article, but, in all fairness, Tatiana would not speak to me for a few days.

And due to Neferet's reaction, I had taught them well.

It was for that reason that Monsieur Gilliard, our French tutor, suggested to my father that I take up some sort of sport to use up the energy I had. I already rode, so it was then that he introduced me to fencing, in one last hope that I might become so worn out as to behave myself. And I loved it. It was something that I had never thanked Monsieur Gilliard for, something I probably should have. It did after all bring me together with the man I would eventually marry.

I snorted. Mama was still spinning in her grave to this day. She had barely allowed the fencing anyway, for it was not ladylike. If she had known that it would lead me to him, she would sooner have had me swallow cyanide. I learned well from my sisters, primarily their mistakes. Maria, fascinated by the officers since childhood, was told regularly by our governesses that "nice little girls do not kiss soldiers". My parents would not rest until they saw all of us married off to the prince of God knows where. I could only thank my lucky stars that, as the youngest, I was the least of their concerns. I did feel sorry for Olga though.

No, my parents would never have allowed me anywhere near him.

I exhaled and shut my eyes as my vision became blurry. However all this was not coming as a great asset to my own health. Rather than me supporting Zoey, it was Zoey supporting me. If Neferet was not sleeping, and I could only presume that she was sleeping because her conscious mind that drew energy from me was quiet, I would have hours. I was so hungry that my stomach had started to bloat, which meant it had actually begun to digest itself. To say I wasn't scared was an utter lie. I tried to keep myself as calm and brave as I could, knowing everything I felt he felt. And now Zoey. I had to be strong for her too. She was getting weaker as well, but I didn't believe that she had noticed. She had stopped crying now, having run out of tears, and was now silently sitting with her head against my shoulder, so silently in fact, that if I didn't know better, I might have thought she was asleep.

It was unfair. It was unfair that I would see my love again, but she would not. She was so confused. Whenever I looked down at the top of her head I could just see the cogs turning as she tried to process what had happened, what still was happening. As far as I had known, she had really liked Erik Night, I had been unaware of her human consort, and now her warrior.

"Anastasia?"

"Hm?"

"Will they think I'm stupid?"

"About what?"

She sighed. "Three-timing. I feel stupid."

"Well, two, a vamp and a human, is alright, three is pushing it a little."

She shuffled. "I, I was only trying to follow what my heart was telling me. But, it lead me wrong."

"It confused you. You're seventeen." I said, stroking her hair lightly, "Everyone has to learn through the mistakes their hearts make. Maybe it was stupid. Who on Earth hasn't done something stupid in their lifetime? You're dealing with an incredible accelerated rate of Change, Imprinting, bloodlust, you shouldn't have to deal with that until the Sixth Form. And even then, you're not an android Zoey, you're a living being." To have said 'human being' would have been too clichéd.

"I tried to let Heath go! I tried! He wouldn't!!! I..." she blinked tears away, "I wish he had. He might still be alive..."

I cuddled her. "Zoey..." I said, "He was an imprinted human. What's more, he was a teenage boy, there's no changing their minds."

"And Erik... I thought I knew him so well..."

I had read her mind, not even willingly, before she had to say anymore. "Let me tell you something." I continued, "Men are possessive. Competitive. It's not even their fault. It's a part of them. They want someone to be only theirs because to them they are failing as a partner if they don't. They don't want to share, especially if you mean a lot to them. They consider you their territory, and when other men enter that territory it makes their blood boil. And the irony? Women are exactly the same. Tell me..." I asked, "How would you feel if Erik, or Stark, began to enjoy the attention of someone else too much while they were with you?"

Zoey thought for a moment. "I'd be jealous."

"We are just as bad." I told her, "And teenage boys like Erik Night don't know what to do with that jealousy."

"But, he was, almost forceful."

"Trying to keep your attention on him." I explained.

"It didn't feel like that."

I smiled. "Don't expect a boy your age to be a perfect casanova. They don't have the first clue, especially not when reacting to the pressure of other suitors lurking. He felt he had to fight for you. Even when we were young, Dragon and I went green with jealousy when other people made advances. Sometimes we still do, even though we know we don't have to."

She looked surprised. "Really?"

I nodded. "We fumbled through everything as fledglings, neither of us really understood the bond we shared and much less what it lead to. It doesn't make us any less prone to our human instincts."

"So we never really lose the part of us that is human."

"No. Unless you are Neferet."

I closed my eyes again, this time shaking my head as I tried to clear my vision. My body felt cold and tingled for a moment, before Zoey's voice pulled me back.

"Professor, are you okay?"

"Get ready." I said, "We're finally getting out of here."

* * *

_Normal POV_

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What had turned out to be a stunning day had just become even brighter. No one even noticed it until Aphrodite told someone to 'shut the damn curtains'. Maria must have succeeded. Even Eliás looked stunned as the diamond necklace shone a blinding white light, other colours darting in and out through the thick of what had become something akin to what one might see inside a nuclear reactor, if it were indeed possible to see inside a nuclear reactor. More light erupted in an enormous wave of force, and blinded everyone, blacking out the entire room and shattering every window. Completely without vision, they heard four thuds on the floorboards below.

Dragon had fallen to his knees before his wife even before he could even see her, and enveloped her in his arms, holding her so tightly it was a wonder she didn't asphyxiate. Anastasia curled up as close to him as she physically could, asphyxiating him back. She buried her head into the base of his neck, breathing in the scent of him, everything.

"Thank you Nyx, thank you, thank you, thank you..." he murmured as he kissed her hair and face again and again, tears of joy pouring from his sparkling eyes. She put the palm of her hand flat over his heart, the regular thuds jumping into her grasp. Finally.

Zoey, the only one with enough strength to pull herself to her feet, pushed herself off the floor, only to fall into the arms of Jack and Damien on one side, and Shaunee and Erin on the other. Their hug became somewhat short-lived as her knees gave out, all four of them fell to the floor beneath her weight. Stark cut through the crowd and picked Zoey up into his arms, carrying her to the sofa.

"Are you alright???" he asked, touching the side of her face gently as he leaned over her like a protective shell. She nodded, and coughed, closing her eyes. Her heart felt like it was cut into pieces and as it beat inside her the different pieces hitting each other sent shots of pain up her spine. "You're out of there now..." he reassured her.

The moment passed so quickly that Zoey didn't even notice anything else. Everything was in front of her. Behind Stark, she caught a glimpse of a swish of silver-blonde hair that could only belong to Lenobia. She was kneeling on the floor next to another figure. Suddenly everyone crowding around her obscured the sight altogether, she couldn't even hear what was happening for bombardment of questions and 'are you alrights'.

"She's still alive..." she heard Lenobia say, "Just. We need some blood, now!" Erce nodded and held her phone to her ear. Behind Lenobia, Eliás knelt to the ground, his face confused. Lenobia looked up at him. "Put him in my room, and watch him like a hawk." she said. Zoey saw him nod, her eyes focussing on Stark again, who was leaning in to kiss her.

"I'm not sure I have room for everyone..." said Erce, furrowing her brow.

"We'll figure something out."

Dragon smiled though his tearstained face. "Excuse us..." he said politely, before picking up Anastasia and carrying her towards his room, leaning against the door to close it. She was only just conscious, and she needed to drink from him, now. Vampyres, over time, could learn to control their reactions to blood-drinking. It was an art of which Lenobia was a master, but for them, there had never been any need to conceal the reaction, no need for control. It was something better done in private.

Blood arrived in a cooler box from the House of Night's kitchen. It was literally a case of pouring it down people's throats. Eliás looked over his casualty, following Lenobia's advice. He wondered briefly why she had briefed him to watch over an unconscious person as if they were from a high-security prison. After three pints of blood, he was looking a little better. His eyes twitched and his body stirred.

At that moment, Lenobia came through the door at a rate of knots. "Any improvement?" she asked.

Two sets of eyes looked back at her. "Lenobia."

She narrowed her eyes. "Loren."

* * *

"How are you feeling Zoey?" asked Lenobia, holding out a glass of water for her.

Zoey took the glass. "Better..." she said, looking down at her skinny form, "Just about."

Lenobia gave a small grimace. "I don't like to be the bearer of bad news." She said, looking over her shoulder briefly, her silvery hair, pulled back in a tight ponytail came inches from Zoey's face as it swung, "But Loren Blake has requested to speak with you, as soon as you are well."

Zoey swung her legs from the sofa and sat up. "Well..." she said, her eyes glinting, "I want to give him a piece of my mind too."

Lenobia said nothing more, and stood by her as she got to her feet, taking the glass of water back and holding out her hand to indicate to the girl which room to go to.

She strode through the door, and slammed it behind her. And then she froze.

There he was. In the flesh. Still tall and extremely handsome, if a little thinner. Her courage faded. His face was not how she remembered it. It was serious, when she had never seen it anything other than kind, or with a very sexy expression written over it. She had planned what she might say to him, or scream at him, but as she stood there, once again a little girl, nothing came out.

"Zoey." He said, his voice solemn. "Thank you for speaking with me."

Zoey stared. "What is it?" she asked coldly.

She half expected for him to step closer to her, as he usually did at this point in a conversation between them. It struck a numb chord when he didn't. "I want to apologise." He said quietly, "For what I did to you. I was going to explain myself, but I doubt you'll want to stay that long."

"No I don't!!!" she said, raising her voice, "And why should I???"

"Zoey..."

"Please go away."

He let out a sigh. "I never wanted to hurt you."

She looked livid. "Didn't you???" she hissed, "So what exactly was it you were doing Loren???"

He bit his lip, choosing his words. "I had to."

"Why??? For the sex???"

"No."

"Then what the Hell was the point???"

"I had to make it look like I was obeying orders."

"Neferet??? You loved her, and you let her use you like a toy!!! And then you ruined my life!!!"

His words stung. "Please get over yourself! You're seventeen, not five!!!"

She shrieked at him. "What is that supposed to mean???"

"You won't understand. I needed to be close to her. You were the small price I had to pay."

Zoey stood, frozen. Tears fell from her eyes as she left the room as fast as she could, slamming the door behind her. Loren sat on the edge of the bed, holding his head in his hands. It wasn't supposed to be this hard.

A knock on the door sounded. "Come in." he said lifelessly, not moving from nursing his headache. The door opened, and in stepped an impassive-looking Dragon.

"What do you think you're doing?"

He said it as if it were any question, as if asking someone to pass the salt or what they were doing at the weekend. There was no hint of anger there at all, just a plain sternness, making Loren feel like a fledgling again.

Loren buried his head further. "Help..." he murmured, tucking his knees up and leaning his forehead against them. The word wasn't aimed at anyone in particular, but Dragon answered all the same.

"Why should I?" he asked, closing the door behind him and leaning against the adjacent chest of drawers, his arms crossed across his chest. "You've caused quite a stir." he said, disapproval in every word.

Loren sighed, and closed his eyes. "You won't understand."

"Then help me understand." he said, sounding angrier by the second, "Because Goddess help me Loren, I am _struggling _to understand!"

"You know what it's like to lose someone." Loren said, catching Dragon off guard, "You would do anything in your power to stop that from happening, wouldn't you? My path was not as simple as yours."

"How so?"

"How far do you go to free someone you love?"

Dragon blinked at the question. "What do you mean?"

Loren looked him in the eye. "I had to stay close to her. Even if it meant playing sick games. Zoey would get over me, and I could continue to try and help her."

Dragon couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. "Neferet???"

Loren broke the eye-contact and twisted his head away as if he were ashamed to justify it with an answer. "Don't be _ridiculous_."

"I'm confused."

No." he said, "Not Neferet. Never Neferet."

"Who?"

Loren got up. "I appreciate your concern." he said, his eyes bloodshot, "But this is really none of your business." He strode towards the door, getting ready to push Dragon out of the way as the smaller vampyre moved to stop him. Loren's eyes suddenly went wide as he felt something cold and sharp tap him under the chin...

Dragon stood with a rapier sword in his hand, the point at Loren's jaw, his other hand in a fist behind the small of his back in the old-fashioned manner.

Loren blinked. "Seriously, where did that come from?"

"That doesn't matter." said Dragon, "What does..." he tapped Loren twice sharply on the jaw, "Is that it just became my business." his face was clever, his lips tweaking into a smirk and one eyebrow raised."Sit." he ordered, finally taking the rapier away as Loren went to sit down again. "Now..." he continued, lowering the weapon and making a swishing sound in the air, "If there is any way in which you can even begin to put a dent in justifying yourself, you might as well start, seeing as we're all in this together, and if you're not with Neferet, then you're with us."

"You'll think I'm mad."

"I already think you're mad." Loren looked up again, "So try me." he said, leaning against the chest of drawers again.

Loren took a very deep breath and rubbed his temples. "If I told you, that Neferet, wasn't Neferet. That the person we know as 'Neferet' is a spirit, controlling someone else's body, what would you think?"

Dragon processed the information. "I'd think you were little different to any other madman I hear on a daily basis." He said, "Continue."

"I admit, I made a mistake." he said, "To even strike up a relationship with her in the first place. The only reason I ever stayed was because, in the dead of the day, she became someone else."

"Metaphorically, I hope."

"Actually. 'Neferet'..." he made the speech-marks gesture, "And I did physically Imprint, but, I realised, my soul wasn't connecting to hers, it was entwining with someone else's... It was another person inside her. Someone very frightened." Loren looked almost embarrassed, "As the Imprint got stronger, it's like she became stronger, could take control. Unfortunately, Neferet knew it wasn't her that attracted my attention, and used that to her advantage to make me do things, to ensure her safety... I... I had to make it look like I believed I was imprinted with Neferet. I had _no_ choice!"

"And so you had sex with a pupil???"

"As I said to her, she is seventeen, hardly a child. She can deal with it, she'll get over me. It was a small price to pay." he said, "What's worse..." he shuffled uneasily, "I'm no saint, Dragon. I would do things more abhorrent if I could see her free."

A similar uneasiness coursed through Dragon. Because, he knew that if that had been the price he had for Anastasia's life today, he would have done it. Without a second thought. Loren was right. To Loren, Loren was trying to save someone he was falling in love with, to Zoey, he was just a jerk she'd had a fling with. "Tell me about her." he said, "This other Neferet." Loren was silent, as if pondering whether or not to break a vow of secrecy, "What's her name?"

Loren's voice grew quiet. "Laila." he swallowed, "Her name is Laila."

"The hebrew word for 'night'." Loren nodded, but didn't say anymore. "Tell me about this Imprint." Loren looked almost murderous, "Imprints tell us a lot about our paths. You have imprinted before, why is this Imprint so special?"

He wiped his forehead. "I don't know." he said, drawing his fingers over is cheeks, "All I know is that it is a very strong one. For example, when it happened, Zoey's then Imprint with her human consort broke in favour of me, but my Imprint didn't budge." he sighed, "She is in my head, all the time. And I am powerless..." his eyes flashed with anger, "I can't do a damned thing for her!!! It's driving me mad!!!"

"How old is the Imprint?"

Loren forced himself to be calm, but rage radiated from him, almost glowing. "A few months..." he pulled his badge from his pocket, the one Neferet had worn, and took a long look at it, "This used to give me such pride." he said, twisting it in his fingers, "It was my life. And now it is just a tool by which I try to dig an even bigger hole for myself!"

"Can you communicate with her?"

"Sometimes, when I am close and Neferet is asleep, she can take control. And, sometimes, I think I am beginning to hear her thoughts..."

Dragon stopped himself from blinking. "What?"

"But I can't communicate." he said, "Only hear."

A binding Imprint. Dragon thought it had been odd when his intuition had told him about Loren and Zoey. All of Loren's references described him as a thoroughly hard-working respectable young vampyre. Too many questions. Not enough answers.

"Who is Laila?"


	12. Stock Broking

_**Resurrected**_

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**Me: Hey guys!!! Just to say there is a trailer for this fic now, it's on YouTube, my username there is Seryphael, so check it out, it's very cool lol ^^ BTW, "spag bol" is a British way of saying "spaghetti bolognaise". R&R!!!**

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Loren took a deep breath. "I don't want to be criminalised anymore." he said, "This is a long-winded, far-fetched story, so listen. Neferet calls herself Nyx Incarnate. The very distasteful truth is that it isn't entirely false." He said, half expecting Dragon to explode in outrage. When he didn't, Loren took it as safe to continue, "Everything comes from Nyx. Everything good and wonderful. But so does everything bad and evil. It is impossible for even a Goddess to be born solely good. That is just how life works, there has to be two sides to everything, to keep balance. As there is a dark side in every one of us, there was a dark side in Her too. Nyx did not want to be associated with that darkness, not even from the Beginning. She banished the Evil within Her to Earth, magically. And in doing so, unknowingly created what would later become the very first Tsi Sgili. This was all in ancient times, 'Tsi Sgili' is just what the Cherokees called them. But somehow, I do not think even Nyx Herself knows how, but that Evil was born into a human child, six thousand years ago in Egypt."

"The name 'Neferet' is Ancient Egyptian." Dragon said to himself, "Are you trying to tell me, that Neferet is the manifestation of Nyx's banished evil?"

Loren nodded. "Nyx revealed to one of Her favoured High Priestesses that Neferet, then a child, was what she was, and word got out. Neferet was considered to be a devil, and as a result, was treated horrendously; raped, tortured, repeatedly. Until she was Marked by Nyx, in an act of kindness for what had happened. Then the trouble really started. Neferet went on a killing spree, slaughtering every human she found, before Nyx was forced to kill her Herself. That is where the Egyptian legend of 'Sekhmet' comes from. In that story her name was changed because the Egyptians would not even speak her name, a little like Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter. Of course, being a part of Nyx, Neferet's spirit is immortal." He paused, looking Dragon in the eye, "In every vampyre generation she inhabits the body of a fledgling, just as they are Marked, someone who for similar reasons as her would bear resentment for humans. She lives their lifetime, in each one she tries to bring revenge on Nyx and on humans." He took another breath and sighed, "Laila was just unfortunate."

Dragon crossed his arms again. "And Laila's spirit is still inside her body?"

"Yes."

"And you want to get rid of Neferet to free Laila? But didn't want Neferet to know that that was your intention, nor that you knew that Laila even existed."

"Yes."

"I see."

"You can't kill her." He said, "If you kill Neferet, you will kill Laila too."

"Not to mention yourself." Said Dragon quietly.

Loren's gaze hardened. "What?"

Dragon clutched his arms. Loren could love this person far more, that Imprint far stronger than Loren had revealed or would ever want to reveal to a colleague. Could he even trust Loren? On the other hand, what if it was true? Dragon's eyes narrowed as he tried to select his words. "Loren, the symptoms of the Imprint you are describing sound rather binding to me."

* * *

Lenobia slapped her hand down on the table. "Fantastic." She said sarcastically, "Just fantastic."

"Don't wake them." Dragon warned. Everyone apart from Eliás, Lenobia and himself had decided to get some sleep before tomorrow. Loren, Darius, Aphrodite and Stark were asleep on the floor, the fledglings were snoozing in armchairs and on the sofas. Anastasia was curled up in Dragon's arms, her head tucked beneath his chin, the fingers of her left hand curled into the fabric of his shirt over his chest. She was sleeping soundly.

"How did Loren even find out about his other woman's existence?" Eliás asked.

"He imprinted with her as opposed to with Neferet."

"And when you saw her, it was this other spirit as well?"

"I burned her when switching the necklaces. I think it must have jolted her into consciousness.

"Let's discuss this when everyone is awake, my brain has overloaded." Dragon suggested, "We would only have to repeat it all to them anyway." He slipped his one arm beneath Anastasia's knees and rose from his armchair, "We will retire." He said, "Sleep well."

"You too." Said Lenobia as the door to his room closed inaudibly. Once again, Eliás held a cup of coffee in his hands, his face tired. "Are you going to sleep?"

"I can't." He said, "I don't exactly wish I could."

She clasped her hands in front of her and leant forward slightly to listen, her eyes were tired, but kind. "How are you?" she asked.

"I've been better." He replied, putting the mug back on the coaster, "I think I nearly had a heart attack today."

"Although the ability to defibrillate yourself somehow deducts the impact from that metaphor."

He chuckled. "True. Lenobia..." he said, leaning forward, "This changes everything."

"I know. We can't kill her now." She said, "If we kill her Eliás, not only will we kill Laila, but we will kill Loren as well."

"Dragon thinks it's a binding Imprint."

"He would know. And if it is, it almost justifies Loren's behaviour. Even if we did kill her, Neferet's soul would immediately hijack someone else. Another fledgling. That's not an option. And not even Nyx's exorcism got rid of her effectively."

"That is, presuming that Loren's story is true."

"Whenever I try and read him I don't sense lying. But even if he's not lying, how he obtained this information is debatable, I doubt Neferet sat down and told him the lot like he did for us. What's to say his source of this knowledge is reliable?"

"I agree."

"We need more, and have no way of getting it. Would there be anything in the Library?"

He shook his head. "For my ordination I studied Nyx's path from those books. Nothing ever mentions the banishing of an Evil, but they are specific in the teaching that Nyx Herself is a vampyre, a little like the concept of Jesus having been a human in Christianity. Even Nyx is a balanced person. For day, there must be night. The having a darker side is never exactly played up, although it is admitted and absolutely never denied."

"So in theory it's possible?"

He shifted. "Maybe."

"What if we have to kill her?" Lenobia asked, "What if it comes to that?"

"If it comes to that..." his voice trailed as he thought, "Then we will have to kill her." He shook his head to himself, "Although Goddess help me, when to know when that moment comes. How is one to decide how much a life is worth?"

"Or two lives, or three? And what on Earth makes us think we _can_ kill her?" Lenobia sighed, "The sad truth is, lives aren't worth much, Eliás. We all like to think that we are worth something, and indeed we certainly should mean something for what we are, but that doesn't change the reality that so many of us die for such a tiny price. Imagine Anastasia had been killed in the way we were led to believe. How much was her life worth then? The swipe of a Raven Mocker's beak."

"You are forgetting sentiment." He replied, "How much was her life worth to Dragon? Far more than his own, I should think."

"I know. But when you start talking about sentiment, you distort everything. Sentiment was the reason Loren Blake prized Neferet's life above his own. Not directly of course, but still. If you had had the choice, if you could save one and only one of them from death right now, who would it be?"

"Loren."

"Even if Loren wanted you not to? If it destroyed his soul to do so? And what if you had a choice between say, Anastasia and one of your fledglings? It is your duty as a High Priest to save the fledgling but if you do, Anastasia will die, which mean Dragon will too. Two people will die, not just one. Despite Anastasia's life being worth the world to Dragon, to that fledgling's parents it won't mean as much as the life of their child."

Eliás sat silent, completely unable to speak. Several times he tried to open his mouth to speak, but quickly shut it again before anything came out. Lenobia sat back in her chair, her point made.

"Don't look too deeply into sentiment, Eliás." She said, her face strained in a way that made it perfectly obvious that she herself hated what she was saying, "Especially not in a war."

He listened. "You're looking too far forward." He said, trying to soothe the hate from her eyes, "We're not in a war yet. Aphrodite said..."

"That the war will only happen if Zoey dies." Lenobia interrupted, "And it's _almost_ happened three times in the past forty-eight hours."

"We should be trying to stop the war from happening. Deactivating the catalysts."

"If Neferet is out, then our only other target is Kalona."

"You said Zoey doesn't want him killed."

"That may be irrelevant. I don't want it to be, but it may be."

"This other girl, Laila." Eliás' brow crumpled like he was trying to gain forgiveness for something he'd done, "I swear what Aphrodite and I saw was not Neferet." He pursed his lips, "I'm sure. But I don't know what we can do for her. I can't separate their spirits because there isn't a body for her to enter, she would die. I can't remove Neferet because she will move on to someone else."

"Dimitri Mihailov created a duplicate of Anastasia's body to fool DNA scientists." Said Lenobia, "Could we do that?"

He shook his head. "Neferet's Tsi-Sgili powers have caused her body to evolve. She's no longer a vampyre, not even anatomically. If we copy her body as it is, we would effectively create another Neferet, it may even turn Laila evil." he looked to be contemplating something for a moment, "Unless..."

"Unless what?"

"Well I studied Chemistry not Biotechnology..." he said, "But I'm just wondering, would it be possible if we obtained some of Laila's human DNA, something from before she was Marked, anything with her cells that we could extract?"

"Wouldn't that create a human body?"

"Yes, but that is less harmful than a Tsi-Sgili one. And Nyx may even Mark her again, we are after all Marked for our souls, not for our physical capacities." He said, "How old is Neferet?"

"Young. Not yet thirty."

"Not young enough."

"What do you mean?"

"Because if she were young, if we took a piece of her hair, from the ends, it might still have her human DNA in it, hair is dead, remember so it wouldn't have mutated, but with vampyres our hair grows so fast I don't think there will be any still there."

"So we need to get hold of some of her human DNA? How the Hell do we do that?"

"I don't know." He said, "The question is how do we get hold of it in time? We could fly back to Tulsa, track down her parents, ask them for something that would provide a DNA sample, by which time it may be too late."

Both of them sat silently for a moment, like the tiniest sound would wake everyone like a herd of elephants would.

"Neferet has only just recently become a Tsi-Sgili, physically anyway, no matter where her loyalties always lay." Lenobia suddenly perked up, "Eliás, that normal _vampyre_ DNA will still be there. We need a lock of her hair."

"And that means another Mission Impossible. Tell me, should I wait until all other possibilities are exhausted, or should I just volunteer myself now?"

"Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, High Priest."

"And yet the lowest forms of so many things are so much fun." He glanced down at the mug on the table, "I think I need another coffee for this kind of thing." He said, jumping to his feet.

"I don't think it's possible for vampyres to overdose on caffeine, but they say there's a first time for everything."

"D'you want one?"

Lenobia rolled her eyes. "Fine." She said, getting up from her chair and following him into Erce's kitchen.

"What is that smell?" he asked as he walked towards the kettle.

"Erce's spag bol." Said Lenobia, pinching her nose.

"But we didn't have spag bol."

"It was so bad it never reached the table." She said, lifting herself up to sit on the counter, letting the heels of her tall dressage-cut riding boots knock gently against the cupboard door.

"Why are you still wearing those? You haven't been near a horse for days."

"And am suffering withdrawal symptoms." She said, "These are my lucky Königs. I was wearing them when I jumped on the plane, and, I like the familiarity."

Eliás poured the water into the mugs and went to the fridge for some milk. "Milk and sugar?"

"Milk, no sugar."

He nodded and poured some milk into the mug, before carrying it to her. Just as she held out her hands to receive it, he completely lost his balance, like something had tripped him, and the cup went flying, as did he. He hit the side of the counter hard, breaking the impact with his hand. Not so happily for Lenobia, the hot coffee became her second shower for that day. She gasped as the heat burned her skin – it was everywhere, but mostly her lap. She bit her lip as he found his feet again, his face horrified.

"Oh Goddess..." he said, covering his mouth with his hand, "I, am, so sorry... I, I slipped..." he immediately turned around and began to look in the cupboards, "Where does Erce keep the damn polyroll?"

As he checked the drawers, he heard laughing behind him. Turning, Lenobia was grinning, her eyes sparkling comically. As she saw his face she laughed even more. "You know..." she said between chuckles, briefly looking down at her burned thighs, "That trick I would have expected from the lads back at the barracks..." she said, "But not an educated man such as yourself!"

He looked even more apologetic. "I assure you I had no such intention, I do apologise..."

"Why did you slip?" she asked, looking at the floor below. "Oh." She said, blinking from the obviousness, "That explains it."

On the tiles, there was a pile of what looked vaguely like food, and a scraped line where Eliás had, so to speak, put his foot in it. "Well at least we know what happened to the spag bol."

Eliás couldn't stop himself from laughing as he found the polyroll, pulled off several sheets and handed them to Lenobia. "Thank you."

"How did that get there?"

Lenobia pressed the tissue to her legs to absorb the coffee from her britches. "I wouldn't be surprised if Dragon had lost his temper and thrown it at her."

He re-poured the coffee and then set about cleaning up the mess. "Does it hurt?"

"Honestly, in the army, this happened so many times I've got used to it."

"Really?"

"Except in the army I threw the men over my shoulder into whatever was there and would hurt. They stopped trying after a while."

"You threw them?"

"We were taught to do that, might as well put it to good use." She said, "It's not the sort of place you want to come across as the type they can take advantage of."

He finished wiping the floor and put the food-like substance into the bin. "The stress is getting to you now." He said, passing her the new coffee. "The fledglings think you've changed since all this started happening."

She ran her hand through her hair. "I may be strict, but I'm not an android." She said, "And I am seriously worried. So should they all be. But I won't let it cloud my judgement." She shuffled on the counter, "So tomorrow. It's now four pm. The Council is due to meet at six am. We need you, we need Anastasia, and we need a lock of Neferet's hair. So how on Earth are we going to get it?"


	13. Defibrillation

_**Resurrected**_

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**Me: R&R!**

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"I don't see her letting us get close enough to try."

Lenobia leant forward. "Would it be possible though?"

Anastasia pulled a face. "Possibly..." she said, "I've never tried that before, it would be like cloning." Even the few hours of sleep had done her the world of good, she looked bright, alert, she wasn't even as thin as she had been, and neither was Dragon, who was sitting right next to her. Blood really was a miracle cure.

"Someone with increased speed might get close enough, but no one here has that." He said.

"I think I can help."

The vamps turned around. They had left the fledglings asleep, knowing they couldn't function on so little as adults could. They had left the casualties to sleep as well, except for Anastasia, who had wanted to be there. Besides, Dragon had yet to let out of his arms. There was Loren Blake, standing up where he had been sleeping, looking fully alert, but somehow unenthusiastic.

"Loren?"

Silently, he began fumbling in his pocket, pulling out an amulet on the end of a chain. He came and sat down with the others, his fingers fiddling with a clasp at the edge of it. Finally, he pulled it apart, opening it like a locket. Onto the table fell a little curl of brown, turning and twisting as it fell.

The vampyres all looked at it as if it was Nyx Herself.

"Loren..." said Eliás, picking up the lock of hair, "You just made my day."

"Now he doesn't have to do another Mission Impossible." Lenobia added.

"Only a Poet would be so cheesily romantic." Said Anastasia, leaning her head on Dragon's shoulder.

"With you two coming in a very close second."

Loren said nothing, looking a little offended by Anastasia's comment. His face remained hard, his eyes as cutting as Lenobia's as he put the locket back into his pocket.

"This is going to require a lot more than a little rhyme." Said Anastasia, "I'll need potion for this kind of thing." She turned to Erce, "Can we use the House of Night's facilities?"

"Of course."

"We may need to defibrillate the body to kick-start it." Said Eliás, "I can do that. And some help from the Spirit element, technically..." his voice wavered.

"You're not sure it'll work." Dragon evaluated.

"As a sorcerer, I think it will. But as a scientist..." he held out his hand and tilted it to either side, "I can't be sure. Magic versus science? How far does science go before magic takes over? There are still so many things even humans don't know about themselves, vampyres know even less. How are we going to incorporate the DNA into the spell?"

"I will do it." said Loren suddenly, the cold in his voice taking out any surprise they might have felt. He picked up a pen and pad of paper, "Any specifications?"

"None." Anastasia replied, "Just that it has to rhyme. Not too long either."

He nodded abruptly and turned on his heel, heading off in a flurry of black into the conservatory, not saying a word.

"Is he alright?" asked Eliás.

"Who knows."

* * *

_Loren's POV_

* * *

I leant against the door behind me to close it, the little click of the latch flicking a switch in my head, clearing the fog in my head and allowing me to enjoy the silence around me. I looked out of the glass window ahead of me, through Erce's array of plants, and saw the castle in the distance. The night was cool, a climate I far preferred. I began to write down words, just random words. Words that I liked or thought I could use to good effect in this spell. As I did I began to think about what the Hell I had got myself into. I had never wanted to go this far.

I had described my relationship with Neferet as just that. A relationship.

It was a fling. Sex and good wine. She did not care for me and I definitely did not care for her. I wasn't a sexual deviant, but there was a darkness, something foreboding about her that had attracted me to her. A thrill, the power.

I liked that thrill. Ever since I became the Poet Laureate, I would be introduced as 'Loren Blake, Vampyre Poet Laureate', I would appear and anyone taking a sip of their orange juice would spit it all back out again because the figure before them wasn't female. Darkness, defiance, the thrill, the rebellion. Not doing what I was supposed to, the forbidden fruit, I thrived on it.

When Neferet included me in her plans, all I could think about were the above listed. I was not lying to Dragon when I said I could do abhorrent things. I could, and I still can. If it meant my life were safe, I could hurt people, gladly. I was not a paragon of good. There was darkness. More darkness than light.

But more recently I have felt like nothing more than a fish on a tackle being drawn up from the murky depths of black water into the first penetrating rays of light, wishing that the person on the end of the fishing rod would be merciful and throw me back when he had had a good look at me, asphyxiating me in the process.

That's where I am now, asphyxiation.

Imprints are easy. I discovered that long before it was taught in Sociology. When I Imprinted with Neferet, well, it just added to the thrill. At one point it even served as justification, that what I was doing was, in some twisted way, right.

It's funny how blessings are curses in disguise. Neferet became different after that Imprint, like a personality disorder. She went from one person, to the other during the course of, well, intercourse. It worried me at first, it definitely wasn't normal, and I couldn't stand what she became. Nice. Light. And yet when she did change into this other person, my heart leapt out of my chest at her, I could actually feel the ties between our souls pulling us closer. I hated it. I hated her more. I hated how I couldn't control the glow, the arising contentment I felt when I felt it was her and not Neferet, when all I wanted was Neferet. The Imprint twisted me, my body, my mind, even my heart. Sometimes I would wake up in the morning afterwards and I would be able to think just for a second, just for a second it wasn't happening. And then she would still be there, even in the morning, she kept getting stronger, kept control for longer. She told me her name.

What's in a name?

I sighed. This was why livestock destined for slaughter were given numbers but not names. This person was no longer a part of Neferet, not a slither of life trying to break through the real thing. The name changed everything.

She would kiss me, I would become weak like an ant beneath a magnifying glass, and I would kiss her back.

She told me more. Everything. Everything that I had just told Dragon.

I scribbled more words, forming loose sentences, drabble. This was not what I wanted. At the beginning, I had wanted Neferet, and to get rid of this other person.

And, originally, I did try. Nothing about it told me it was wrong, that I shouldn't be doing it. Or maybe it did and I liked that. I didn't think of it as killing, and even if I had, I still would have done it.

I found out how. I planned. And when it came to it...

I couldn't do it.

I couldn't even force myself to contemplate it. I wanted her, at that moment, so badly, I almost considered extracting Neferet instead. To think about it now made me feel physically sick. I didn't want this! I didn't want to need another person like this. I loathed it all so much to the point where it tortured me in every waking moment I wasn't with her. I hated it. I hated her.

And I loved her.

I sighed frustratedly. However much I disliked it, I wasn't the kind of man who couldn't look facts in the face. Whether or not I really did love her, or if it was this damned Imprint talking, I honestly couldn't tell the difference anymore. I never wanted to love, not anyone. It wasn't a part of me, never has been, never should have been. Although when Neferet 'killed me'... She couldn't know about any of this. So I did what she told me to do, I acted, I lied, I told her I had feelings for Zoey. It's amazing how even the most intuitive of people will buy the silliest stories. And I ended up in more than just the doghouse.

What Dragon said was the worst. It's so easy, to shove something under the carpet, pass it off as speculation, a presumption. Because they wouldn't know what they were talking about. Another truth I was blindly facing. Dragon did know. He was the only one who did. And those words from him held more gravity than they would from anyone else I knew. I had read of binding Imprints, soulmates, but Dragon and Anastasia were the only example I had ever seen. My own first shrinking suspicion had been that Neferet/Laila's blood made me even hotter than that proverbial ant beneath the magnifying glass, whereas anyone else's was dull in comparison. I passed it off as my imagination... Until I began to hear her thoughts inside my head.

My brain was ready to explode. I was too young. I wasn't ready. Hell I didn't even want it. In the grand design of things, it didn't even matter. It was done.

I could even swear, that as I looked up out of the window into the cloudless night, the stars were winking at me.

I was truly going insane.

* * *

_Normal POV_

* * *

"Hello? Is anybody there?"

Zoey, awoken too soon from what was more than your usual beauty-sleep, tried not to slip across the wooden floorboards in her socks as she wandered into the kitchen. Nobody. Where the Hell had they gone? Erin, Shaunee Damien Jack Aphrodite and Darius were still asleep, and the professors seemed to have disappeared. Not a soul stirred. Walking back into the main sitting room, she heard a door click behind her. Spinning around, ready to strike, she felt a very deep repulsion.

"Loren." She said, "Where are the others?"

"They went to the Spells & Rituals laboratory." He said, flipping a piece of paper into his hand from his pocket and holding it up to show her. For a moment, she thought he had written her poetry again, "I have to go down there now." He said, stepping over Darius and Aphrodite, and walking past her to the door.

"Wait." She said, hopping as she pulled on her shoes.

He looked back at her scathingly. "What?"

"I'm coming." She said, "I don't trust you."

He gave a tiny roll of his eyes. "If you must." he said, as she followed him out of the front door.

"What are you doing?"

He focussed his gaze ahead, not looking at her as they crossed the massive courtyard towards the House of Night's corridors, "I've written a spell for Anastasia." He said blankly.

"Why?"

"Because she needs one."

"Why did they go to the Spell & Rituals lab?"

"Why do you have to ask endless questions?" he asked, "You'll see when you get there."

"Well why shouldn't I ask questions, especially as you owe me answers?"

"I owe you nothing."

Zoey scoffed. "Oh really?"

"Really. I sincerely hope you didn't want me to fall on my knees and grovel before you for forgiveness, _High Priestess, _I do not seek it, want it nor need it."

"You're sick."

"You're more childish than I thought you were."

That got her. Zoey walked silently for a bit, sucking on her lip. "I heard them talking about you and Neferet." She said. "Do you love her?"

"No."

"Then do you love Laila?"

Loren's breath caught. "No."

"Then why are you here?"

Loren didn't answer. He continued to walk past the oncoming Italian students that were late for their lessons, until he came to two large double doors. Pulling on one, he begrudgingly held it open for Zoey.

"Hello?" she asked, the lab looked empty.

"In here."

Erce's head popped out from around another door at the front of the classroom, just to the left of the white-board. "We're in the prep room." She said.

Entering the prep room, the smell of Spells and Rituals hit her nostrils. A strange combination of chemicals and cuisine, she could smell the wafting scent of herbs, oils, and also the not so nice stench of phenol and other nasty chemicals she didn't recognise. A space had been cleared off centre prep table, the moonlight from the window in the ceiling lighting it like a floodlight, or a spotlight on a stage.

Zoey almost screamed and her hands shot over her mouth. "Oh. My. _God!_" she said, "_What is __**she **__doing here???_ How did you do this???"

She felt Lenobia put her hand on Zoey's shoulder. "Don't worry Zoey, this is the same spell that was used to duplicate Anastasia in 1918." She said, "We've used some of Neferet's hair from her pre-Tsi Sgili days, this is what she was like before she became one."

"I see the spell worked." Said Loren.

"Yes, thank you. Do you have the other one?"

He nodded. "Of course."

Zoey removed her hands from her mouth as she realised the body on the table was completely immobile, just like something that might be in the House of Night morgue. It was Neferet, her Mark, her face, everything. Only her head and neck were visible from beneath a sheet they had used to cover her. Although she looked younger, as if she were just Changed, her face was peaceful and impassive. Zoey didn't need telling what they were doing.

"You're going to try and separate them aren't you?" she said.

At that moment, before anyone could answer, all of the others that she and Loren had left at Erce's filled into the prep room, each of them looking equally shocked. The Twins shrieked, Damien and Jack stared, Aphrodite looked murderous.

"Z..." said Erin.

"_What is Neferet doing on the table_???" Shaunee finished.

"Don't worry." Said Anastasia calmly, "It's not Neferet, just a copy from a duplication spell."

"She looks younger." Damien observed.

"We used some old DNA of hers."

"Frankenstein much?" Aphrodite murmured.

"We need to separate Laila from Neferet." Lenobia explained, "Once we do, there is nothing to stop us from attacking her." Her eyes flickered very quickly and unnoticeably to Loren's, who looked away equally as fast, "We couldn't kill her at the expense of this girl's life."

Anastasia came out from behind her mixture dish, and put her hand on Zoey's back, leading her towards the body. "This is where we need your help Zoey." She said, taking the piece of paper from Loren as she went, "We have a spell to transfer her soul, which we will need everybody to read, but we need you to summon Spirit to help on her way here." She pointed to the body, "To make sure it sticks, for lack of a better word."

"Alright." Said Zoey.

Anastasia read from the paper:

"Blessèd spirit, we call to thee  
Those who wish to set you free

Come to us who call you near,  
Come to us and settle here."

Aphrodite sneered. "Is that it?"

"It's not my best work." Said Loren, "It'll do."

"Little matters in spell-writing, except for meter and correlation." Said Anastasia, "This is excellent for its purpose." She looked to Eliás, "Are you ready?" he nodded. She returned to her post and threw some more things into the large silver dish, causing a flash of light and dark blue smoke to arise from its contents. "Now." She said.

"Blessèd spirit, we call to thee  
Those who wish to set you free

Come to us who call you near,  
Come to us and settle here."

The light coming through the window brightened into white from silver, shimmered in straight lines and flickered over the table, dancing like something from a disco, everyone felt Nyx in it when it brushed over them.

"Again." Anastasia commanded.

"Blessèd spirit, we call to thee  
Those who wish to set you free

Come to us who call you near,  
Come to us and settle here!"

The light got even brighter, everyone in Zoey's circle felt their elements stir, the various bottles of chemicals and spell ingredients began to shake and fall off their respective shelves. Every single window in the room shattered, the glass thrown onto the grass outside, Those with good hearing could even hear the Sorcery Mistress of San Clemente Signora Dell'Ora trying to calm her class of anxious fledglings in the room next door.

"Again!!!"

"Blessèd spirit, we call to thee  
Those who wish to set you free

Come to us who call you near,  
Come to us and settle here!"

Zoey called. "Spirit, I summon you, go to our friend and guide her on her way, protect and strengthen her so that she may arrive safely."

On the word 'safely', there was a flash, and a slither of bright white descended from outside the broken sky-view window, it shone every colour of the rainbow if the light caught it right, it was like a blinding daytime hallucination. It dropped gently, as those little lights one sees do, slowly, gently, like a feather that is so light, the slightest breeze could blow it off course for miles, it fell softly, seemingly into the heart of the lifeless form on the table, filling it with light that seemed to radiate from beneath her skin, making her look like some kind of angel.

Eliás put his fingers to the pulse on her neck, his expression firm and concentrating, like he was afraid he might miss a beat of her heart. He shook his head to himself and summoned his power, delivering it to his fingertips, before lightly tapping her on the chest where her heart lay. Lenobia began to push up and down on the girl's ribcage like people did when performing CPR, and Eliás tapped her again, feeling for a pulse.

"We have a pulse." He reported, earning a whoop of cheering from the little ensemble.

Zoey grinned. "Thank you Spirit, I release you."

"Is she, alive?" asked Jack, staring.

Eliás grinned too. "Yes." He said, his finger still firmly at her neck checking that she remained that way.

Loren's heart jumped, wriggled and squirmed to get free of his asphyxiating grasp. Rooted on the spot, his eyes scanned her for signs of life. Her head twitched, and suddenly his stomach wasn't there.

Her face moved, her nose twitched again, she blinked a few times, as if waking up from a very deep sleep. "Wha..." she murmured, taking in her surroundings, exhaustion stopping her from jumping up in shock, "Where am I?"

"It's okay..." said Anastasia caringly, "You're free."

She looked overwhelmed. "I'm... Free?"

Anastasia smiled and nodded. "We created a body of your own for you."

The girl gawped at the petite vampyre for a moment, before enveloping her in a tight hug. "Thank you!" she gasped, "Oh Goddess thank you so much!!!"

Anastasia laughed and hugged her back. "Erce's brought some clothes for you." She said. "Come on." She signalled for everyone to leave the room, "Let her get dressed."

Everyone filed out. Everyone that is except Loren, who was still rooted where he stood. "Laila?" he breathed.

She looked over at him, her dark wavy hair falling over her shoulder. "Loren?" she gasped again, "Oh my..."

Loren's lips firmly pressed against hers silenced her completely and they fell into a passionate kiss, sending electricity into their minds and shivers running down their spines.

She pulled away. "Are you alright?" she asked, rubbing the back of his hand in hers.

"No." He said, "You did this to me."

She had. She had turned the ferocious tiger into a harmless kitten, the predator into a morsel of prey at her mercy. She was the fisherwoman at the end of the tackle, pulling him towards the surface, out of his depths, into the light, and she wouldn't throw him back.

She smiled up at him and lean her head against his chest. "I love you." She said simply.

"Why?" he whispered, his eyes pleading for an answer, "How? I've hurt a lot of people and not cared! I'm cruel. I tried to kill you."

Even as he spoke he could feel her pure heart infecting his, lifting the blackness. It was hurting him. His pride, his mind, it was prickling at him, stinging him again and again and again. It hurt, but he wanted more.

"Being cruel is not built into you Loren..." she said, "It is a choice you have to make. Ever since we first imprinted, I have known you were not an evil person. I've shared my body with one for fourteen years and trust me..." she smiled, "You're not. You've done some things you're not proud of, and even the things you are proud of and shouldn't be, you will soon not be. Love enlightens the soul."

He looked away from her, almost embarrassed. What she meant was obvious. This Imprint, this, love, was making him a better person.

She began putting on the clothes Erce had brought for her, jeans which were too long in the leg, a vest top, some trainers and of course some underwear, leaving him silent as she did so. "Look..." she said, pulling the vest top over her head, "I didn't ask for this, or intend for it to happen either. But it just did. We can't help it. So stop dwelling on what you've been, think about what you can be."

She smiled as he kissed her again, this time wandering to her neck and ear. "_I love you..._" he breathed into her ear, kissing her repeatedly.

She encircled her arms around him in a hug. "Even if you hate me for it. Because, deep down Loren, and this I know. Far deeper down inside you than you have ever cared to look, you like it."


	14. Chemical Warfare

_**Resurrected**_

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**Me: Wow, 14 chapters. Keep reviewing people!!!**

* * *

_The water was flowing again. For a long time, for an eternity, it seemed to her, the water in the Nile had not risen. She had prayed often to Nu, to ask for her favourite place to be flooded once again. She dipped her hands in the cool water, and let it trickle back into the pool through her fingers. She loved this place. Her father was a nobleman and a personal friend of the Pharaoh, and the house in which she lived was amongst the most beautiful in the land. So much so, that a supply of water ran directly from the Nile and onto the smooth marble that formed a bathing pool. The water had only flown smoothly into this house when the Nile was high, once a year. She giggled to herself, perching on the steps which lead into the depths of the pool, dipping her feet into the cool water. The one side of the room was open to the air, and layers of thin white veil hung from the ceiling forming a translucent wall, through which the reeds could be seen to be gently waving in the breeze outside. The walls were covered with beautiful art, and pots with tall, dark green plants adorned the sides of the pool. _

_She wasn't allowed down here. This pearly marble-white floor was the lightest thing she had ever seen in her life. Sometimes she would steal down here in the dead of the night when no one was awake, when they forgot to lock her door, just to sit here and look into the water. She could look at her reflection in the water, she could drop her fingers into the water, and the reflection would blur with the ripples, and for a second, for just one second, the Mark wouldn't be there._

_She didn't understand it. What it was, why it was even there. All she knew, was that it was what made her different, ever since she was born. And that was why they all hated her. She had sometimes seen vampyres, with their pretty patterns and their magical gifts. But somehow, even they avoided her as if she carried the deadly plague. Not that she noticed this much._

_She was seven years old._

_She was, to herself, a normal little girl._

_And she became, to herself, a normal teenage girl._

_So why did they still spit on her when she ventured into the street?_

_Why did they hit her until every inch of her skin was blue?_

_Why did they rape her until she bled all the time?_

_Why did they cut her flesh away with whiplashes?_

_And why did her own kind do nothing to help her? _

* * *

"Alright." Dragon clapped his hands, stood up and whistled loudly to get everyone's attention, the sound echoing off the old walls of the S&R lab, somehow mirroring the silver moonlight that filtered through the windows.

"Listen up." All the fledglings looked towards him, "As you probably already know, Neferet will be aware that her host soul is gone." He said, "And I don't think she'll pass it off as a coincidence." He became deadly serious, "I don't want anyone flying back to Tulsa in a body bag." He said, "The only thing we cannot do is bring someone back from the dead. You need to stick together. Your individual weaknesses are impenetrable inside your circle. I understand that you're not trained in magical combat, but you will need to defend each other, work together. It will be hard. And for that reason..." at that moment, the door opened and Anastasia, with the help of Eliás, Erce and Signora Dell'Ora, carried four large plastic boxes and set them down on the table. All four of them were wearing white lab coats and plastic gloves on their hands. The boxes were covered with Hazchem Code labels, and had 'handle with extreme care' printed across the sides. Signore Dell'Ora said something to Erce in Italian.

"Grazie Francesca."

The Italian woman nodded and left, leaving the boxes in the capable hands of Anastasia. "We have prepared these for you." She said, "Now pay attention, because these may save your lives."

She opened the boxes, revealing inside lots of tiny little bottles of different-coloured liquid. "Right." She said, picking up a bottle from the first box, "This light pink one, is a sleeping potion. Throw it at the feet of your target and they will be unwakable for six hours. Make sure no one else breathes in the fumes, it's sometimes useful to throw it at a group of opponents, one bottle will knock out about six individuals." She put the first bottle on the table and picked out another, "This..." she said, holding up a dark pink one, "Will work if the last one doesn't, it will render twenty individuals comatose." She picked out another one, "This blue one..." she said, "Only use it if you really have to. Save the best until last, I always say."

"That's the one to throw at Neferet." Said Zoey, putting everything together.

Eliás continued. "I have also prepared these for you." He said, pulling things out of the next box, "These are chemical warfare agents, used in human wars. Be _extremely _careful with these, they don't have the same direct effect as the potions, anyone coming into contact with them is affected." He pulled out a tiny plastic bag of what looked to be some kind of illegal drug, "This powder is white phosphorus, it's a smokescreen. Shaunee, you will need to light it, but be careful it's extremely flammable so throw it away from you and stand back. This here is 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate, it will incapacitate anyone who breathes it in."

Zoey looked confused. "Why have you got bottles of water?" she said, pointing to the bottles of clear liquid.

"This _colourless liquid _is cyclohexyl methylphosphonofluoridate. It inactivates the enzyme acetylcholinesterase, preventing the breakdown of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine in the victim's synapses and causing both muscarinic and nicotinic effects."

"_What_???"

He smiled. "Better known as Cyclosarin. Causes headaches, blurred vision, twitching, seizures and loss of consciousness. Vapours take effect in seconds, and if you get it on your skin it will take effect after about two hours. So be very, very careful with this one."

Damien picked up a few of the bottles and packets, inspecting them. "How on Earth did you get hold of this stuff?" he asked.

"I had a bad feeling that Erce might have called me here in desperate circumstances." He said, "I pre-ordered them."

"Can you do that?"

"It was once my job to do research projects into the effects of chemicals on the vampyre physiology." He said, "To see if the same ones that worked on humans would work on vampyres, medicines, anesthetics, even warfare agents such as these. I can get hold of pretty much anything, and if I can't I've got contacts who can. These chemicals I've given you will work on any vampyre, although I'm not sure whether they'll work on Raven Mockers, or on Neferet."

"Might they not?"

"There will be some effect, whether or not it is the full one, or even the intended one will remain to be seen." His stern demeanour returned as the fledglings suddenly looked worried, "I apologise for not exactly having the time to run another project before I hopped on the plane."

"The Raven Mockers will be too fast." Said Aphrodite.

"Which is why we will have pistols." Said Lenobia.

"We will?"

"Darius, Stark, Jack, Dragon, Anastasia, Erce and myself will carry one. Our priority will be the Raven Mockers."

"Lenobia, how will you get these?"

Lenobia tapped the side of her nose. "I have friends in high places. More specifically, German military friends in high places. The pistols were delivered yesterday."

"Oh." She said, "Well that would explain it. I thought you had to have a firearms license for that."

"I do have a firearms license."

"Why?"

"So that when I've finally had enough of you I can shoot you Aphrodite."

Zoey's voice penetrated the circle of giggles. "Wait wait wait!" she said, "Are we attacking them?"

No." She said, "These are our defences."

"I thought we were attending Council."

"We are." She said, "And with Neferet no longer with a human energy source, her, unsuitability, shall we say, will be obvious to the Council. She won't win her appeal for Shekinah's position." Lenobia's eyes looked like daggers as she spoke the name of the late Vampyre High Priestess.

"Lenobia, you knew Shekinah well didn't you?" Damien asked quietly.

Lenobia sighed, clutching her forehead. "I was Marked in 1914." She said, "It was the beginning of World War One. I lived in Brandenburg, my father was the head of the German Cavalry. There was a House of Night in Hannover, which I was due to go to, but we were transferred at the last minute." She explained, "Vampyres and their talents are useful when there's a war on, it was expected that the Houses of Night would become air-bomb targets. All the German fledglings were sent to the House of Night in Venice as a result, because it wasn't such a target, being further away, of little importance to the war and much historical importance. Shekinah was the first vampyre I ever met."

"She was working at the House of Night then?"

"Yes. She still was, right until the end. She was like a mother."

"Neferet will pay for everyone she's hurt." Said Aphrodite, "We won't let her hurt anyone else."

"I appreciate the consolation, Aphrodite." She said, "But we have to keep our minds clear. We haven't won yet. We have revealed the true Neferet to the Council. What will happen during Council is not my concern. What happens afterwards is." She took a breath, "If Neferet has to kill every last Council member to get what she wants, I do not believe her incapable of doing it."

"We'll have to protect the Vampyre Council?"

"The Council can defend themselves, but they won't be expecting it."

"What if she puts a spell on them?"

"They aren't the sort of people it's easy to put spells on. Don't underestimate them."

"What about Kalona?" asked Aphrodite, "Even if he has a soft spot for Zoey here, there isn't enough room there for all of us."

"I'm not sure he's really evil."

Everybody turned to stare at Zoey.

"I'm serious!" she said, "He used to be Nyx's warrior."

Aphrodite snorted. "Emphasis on 'used to be'."

"I keep having this dream..." she said, "This dream where he loves Her, and She banishes him."

"Kalona can manipulate your dreams Zoey." Said Anastasia, "It's just what he wants you to see."

Zoey sighed. "It doesn't change what we'll have to do in the end." She said, "We can't kill him, he's immortal. We can't chase him off, we don't have the right circle. And I'm not going to be Kalona-bate this time around."

"I don't think you'll have to worry about Kalona killing." Said Eliás.

"Why?"

"Because everything I've ever read about him describes him as the high and mighty. Killing is messy, it's beneath him, which is why he has the Raven Mockers do it."

"You don't think he'll kill us?"

"I don't think so, not himself, unless one of us poses a great enough threat to his own life. From how he regards Neferet, I don't think he'd kill, not even in her defence."

"Why does he even put up with her then?"

"He needs her power, she needs his influence."

"We know that all of us are immune to that."

Lenobia wore an expression that seemed to indicate some sort of epiphany. She stared at the blank cream wall, her grey eyes searching. "We've missed something crucial." She said, her voice on an autopilot, like she was in awe of the thought she had just had.

"What?"

She stood up. "Kalona was a warrior to Nyx." She said, "Neferet is a part of Nyx isn't she? Kalona definitely has a connection to Neferet, whether he wants it or not. The warrior bond isn't as strong as a binding Imprint, but it's stronger than a normal one. If Neferet dies, Kalona will be very weak. So weak the Raven Mockers will become nothing but wisps of spirits again."

Eliás perked up. "Or, inversely, if Kalona is weakened, for lack of a more final possibility, so is Neferet."

"What worries me, is that she hasn't tried to attack us yet, to stop us from testifying. It makes me think she's confident that she can handle our best efforts easily."

"It's her word against ours."

Lenobia gave a sly smile. "Precisely." She said, sliding her hand into the inside breast-pocket of her jacket and producing several small pieces of paper.

"I'm glad you remembered to bring those." Said Dragon.

"I'm German, we are ridiculously efficient."

Zoey blinked. "What are they?"

"Immediately after Kalona returned and trouble arose in Tulsa, we wrote to contacts, friends and colleagues, all over the world. These..." she said, passing them around the people, "Are statements from High Priestesses who have refused to back Neferet's claim to the position of Vampyre High Priestess."

Eliás glanced over the names and seals on the pages. "Sakura Horoshima, of Hokkaido, Japan, Mæja Flosadottir of Reykjavik, Rosalina Medina of Valencia, Renate Badenhoffen of Hannover, Xiao Jun Li of Hong Kong, Valentina Michaelaevna of St. Petersburg, Olivia Sawyer of Oxford, Diônê Petralia of Athens, to name but a few." He said, flicking through them, "I think mine's still in the post."

"They're the most respected in the world. Olivia is telepathic, can control minds and communicate with birds, Sakura can create illusions, Mæja has an affinity for water, she can communicate with sea creatures. Renate is a chronokinesist and Xiao is a sonokinesist and battle-sorceress. Rosalina's affinity is earth, and Diônê's is air."

"They sound a clever lot."

The voice that spoke was Loren Blake's. He and Laila had been talking in the prep room, and neither looked as if they were truly happy with any of the answers they had ascertained from it. They sat down on a nearby pair of lab stools, close, but not too close. Private affection, fine. But affection in public was more than Loren could stomach. He shot a glance at Dragon and his wife, who still sat as close as they possibly could, he with his arms around her, she with her head on his shoulder, her legs crossed, the one not crossing only her own, but his also. In front of fledglings, it would normally have been considered too much. Then again he was one to talk about what was too much with fledglings.

"They are all avatars of Nyx." Dragon explained, noticing Loren's troubled look and inwardly laughing.

Laila saw this too, and smiled at him. She was so like Neferet, but so different. The way her hair bounced, how she tilted her head when she was asked a question, how her eyebrows raised when she couldn't believe something. It was all exactly the same. Yet there was an openness to Laila, she was genuine. And that made all the difference in the world.

Eliás began to divide the little bottles up into groups, one of each in each, presumably for each of them to take. "Put these in your pockets." He said, "All of you, put the first few bottles into your left pocket. These are the ones that will just knock things out, they're not dangerous. Put the dangerous ones in your right pocket. And remember which way around it is."

Loren looked unimpressed at Dragon's remark. "Nyx Marked you Loren. Don't forget what that means."

* * *

"_I am not your child!!! __**How dare you call me your 'child'???**__ I am your spawn! The part of You that even You Yourself could not stomach! You watched while I begged for death and You did __**nothing**__!!! You didn't even let them kill me!!! They treated the rats in their traps better than me! Why? Because I deserved it?" _

"_Listen to yourself..."_

"_Because You never __**will**__!!! I have been listening to myself for my entire life because I'm the __**only **__one who will!!!"_

"_I Marked you to protect you!"_

"_Which really worked didn't it? You call yourself a Goddess, You're immortal but all You are is a fleck of dirt consumed by Her image!!!"_

"_Can't you see I spared you death? The chance for a life as a vampyre?"_

"_Did You spare me? Look inside Yourself and tell me that. You can't can You? I know. Because I am You! The 'pure good' cannot deal with darkness. __**You should have lived with your own demons like every other living being under the Sun!!!**__ Now, I will see to it that You regret waking up the day You decided You were above me." _

* * *

_R&R!_


	15. Overcurrent

_**Resurrected**_

* * *

**Me: Hi guys! Well, what can I say, I think this is one of the best chapters yet, thanks to the lovely Tsuki-Himitsu, who wrote the battle scene for me. Thank yoouuuuu!!!!! R&R everyone!!!**

* * *

The horrible dark clouds outside sent a foreboding message. Rolling thunder wherever they pleased, they cast a very sinister shadow over San Clemente, and even Zoey's heart. It was a warning, she was sure. Rain was on its way.

"Zoey Redbird, the Council recognises you."

Duantia's voice rang out over them like a sonar wave, making Zoey almost want to flinch as she heard it. She could still hear Heath's voice in here. Who would be next? She looked shiftily from friend to friend. She had faith in Nyx, and in her affinities, but she was so afraid. Afraid for those whose affinities gave them no defence whatsoever to a magical attack. Aphrodite, Darius, Jack, Lenobia, Erce, Loren, Dragon, Nolan. If Neferet wanted to break their necks like she had done Heath's, or slit their throats as she had Shekinah's, they would be gone, just like that.

She saw one of the other Council members whisper to Duantia, the answer to which she spoke to everyone. "Neferet is late, she may take it upon her own head. We proceed as decided." Her eyes seemed to land on something.

"High Priest Eliás?" She said, "You oppose this motion also?"

He nodded. "I do."

She turned slightly. "As do you, Lenobia?"

"Yes." She said, "I will present, if I will, three individuals, whom were presumed to be dead, but were merely victims of a sentiment-trinket spell. Anastasia Lankford, Loren Blake, and Patricia Nolan. You saw Neferet carrying their possessions as recently as yesterday, and they will confirm that this is true."

Duantia blinked as she saw the aforementioned. "Will you confirm this?"

"We will." Said Professor Nolan.

"Very well." She said, "I now wish to hear your High Priestess speak."

Zoey drew a breath. Was this her chance to convince them? Neither Neferet nor Kalona were present, although why, remained to be seen. "We have collected signatures from High Priestesses who cannot be present, but would refuse to support Neferet's claim."

"Bring them forward."

Lenobia pulled the pieces of paper from her pocket again, and walked forward, placing the letters in front of Duantia. "They are signed, dated and stamped, as proof of authenticity."

Duantia looked over the names and seals on the pages. "I see." She said. "Zoey Redbird, may I offer my condolences for the loss of your consort."

"Th... Thank you..." she muttered quietly.

"Now." She said, putting the letters down and looking Zoey right in the eye. "I wish to know, what you consider the immortal to be."

Zoey gulped. "He is Kalona."

That was enough. That was all it took to cause whispers to travel amongst the Council members like wildfire. Duantia erased the confusion from her face. "Can you prove this?"

Zoey broke eye-contact. "No."

"_Not unless any of you are telepathic." _She thought to herself.

"Not unless any of us are telepathic, you say?" Duantia asked, an eyebrow raised. "Then open your mind, Zoey Redbird, and we shall see."

Zoey brought all of the events with Kalona and Neferet to the forefront of her mind, not even vaguely aware that Duantia was there, listening to every thought. It took less than a fraction of a second. Duantia blinked, before sitting down in her chair and looking at the letters again.

Suddenly the doors behind them blasted open, giving rise to a gust of freezing cold air. They all turned. The aura that fell over them was so dark, so horrible, so nauseating to even look at, not one of them had the slightest doubt as to who it was. They wouldn't have even needed to look, Neferet's repulsive power, that seemed to pull every sad thought, every horrendous thing that had ever happened to any of them to the front of their minds, gushed in on them like water through a huge leak in a ship.

It was then they realised they were standing on the Titanic.

Dragon's entire body tensed, the arm that was around Anastasia's waist held her tighter, and tiny electricity bolts covered Eliás' fingertips.

Zoey almost fainted. Dragon had warned them that Neferet would be different without the host soul. Her skin was so white she could have been a ghost, like a sheet of blanched paper. Pale enough to be dead. There was no colour in her cheeks and her lips were a deep red. Her hair was jet black. Longer, but blacker than ebony. Zoey suddenly remembered what Aphrodite has described in one of her visions.

"_If Neferet's hair was black, I'd say it was her hair around you."_

Her eyes weren't a mossy green anymore either, but a lifeless, cobalt blue. There was nothing in there. Nothing. Just evil.

But all of this, all of these changes, they were nothing to the first and foremost one. Despite the difference in hair, eye and skin colour. One similarity made Zoey feel sick.

She was staring at herself.

* * *

Everything, right down to the Marks on her face, her arms, and probably the rest of her. She looked older, yes. But her face was Zoey's, her figure, her height. As Kalona followed her in and stood at the side, even Duantia's mouth was open with shock.

"Neferet?" she gasped, "What on Earth do you think you are doing???"

Neferet put on her innocent act. "I apologise Duantia, This form has never been a benefit to me, the other you know me as was a disguise, if you will. Our appearance... was too similar."

"You were born long before the fledgling."

"I was not referring to the fledgling."

Duantia glared briefly at Kalona, before returning to Neferet. "Neferet, the evidence gathered against you is overwhelming. Do you have anything to say?" Neferet remained completely silent, her eyes locked on Duantia's, her lips tugging up in a nasty smirk. Duantia looked unimpressed. She looked to the other Council members, who nodded at her. "Then it my obligation as senior member of the Vampyre Council to reject your claim."

Neferet began to chuckle darkly, like Duantia had told a bad joke. "I know." She cooed. "Sorry."

It was like in one of those action movies where everything slows down. Neferet's hand raised, pointing directly towards the ancient vampyre. Before anyone had even begun to contemplate the logic behind her actions, let alone restrain her, Lenobia had tackled Neferet to the ground, grappling ferociously with the Tsi-Sgili. Another raise of her white hand sent Lenobia flying into the wall behind them, cracks spreading out into the stone as she fell to the ground. The time bought had been barely enough. The stone wall just above Duantia's head was smouldering, smoking, bits of it crumbling to the ground in the form of thick, black ash. Neferet looked back to Lenobia, raised her hand again. This time, Erin and Eliás had acted simultaneously, thick blue bolts of lightning so fast that they were barely visible struck Neferet hard, followed by a gush of water. She let out a scream that was not even as human as the Raven Mockers'. It sounded more like a roar, like a lioness hungry for her prey. The scream shattered the windows, the stained glass showering onto the Council's table like little shards of light. It had just made way for the Raven Mockers. All Zoey could hear was the thudding of blood in her ears and the caws of the Raven Mockers. Not even they were prepared for what hit them. The glass bottles shattered on the ground, sending puffs of vapour into the air. Damien immediately reacted by calling air to keep the poisonous fumes away from them. Those that were not immediately incapacitated were shot dead, falling from suspension like pheasants to a shooting party.

And that was Kalona's cue. His face more angry than Zoey had ever seen it before, all of the beauty was gone, rage boiled beneath his skin, his black wings became even blacker. He spread his wings threateningly and took off, even amidst the vile fumes, not even coughing, his wings beating the air and a sickening pace crushing the fumes into vile clouds.

Clutching her now bleeding head, Lenobia looked around at the sight in front of her. Zoey was battling hard and fast, element after element she was now hurling at Neferet with such viciousness it was obvious that the pain Neferet had caused her over the past few months, was now boiling over and finally allowed to take form. Damien had created such a high wind that Kalona was stopped from leaving the castle; though his wings beat steady and harsh he gained no distance from the battle. His beautiful features distorted in anger and he whirled around in mid-air searching for the conjurer of such a powerful, unforgiving wind. His gaze immediately came to rest on Damien, whose eyes looked wide and shone with terror.

Spreading his ebony wings, Kalona followed the direction of the wind and allowed it to propel him forwards, catching in his wings and lifting him higher still. Pushing with all his might, Damien called wind to stop Kalona from reaching him but his strength was wavering, already he was getting tired. Kalona battled easily with the force of the wind and descending quickly on Damien, the sharp dagger-like edge of his wing pointed straight at his heart. Only millimetres separated the sharp point of Kalona's wing and Damien's fear- frozen heart when Dragon's expert sword came slashing down, causing Kalona to cry out and jerk backwards against the wind.

Anastasia, Stark and Darius swung their rapiers expertly as they battled at least fifteen red fledglings that had appeared from the shadows. Spinning and lunging, deflecting and attacking Anastasia cut down three fledglings all in one. Stark's sword was thrown out of his hand and he crashed to the floor, a shattered wrist. Tears of agony burned his eyes and throat but he reached for his bow and arrow as the red fledgling pounced on him. Pacing an arrow into his bow faster than he thought possible he pulled back and thought of nothing but the creatures black heart. It crumpled upon him, her blood red eyes wide with shock before they glazed and became blank, dead.

Neferet had been bound but what looked like three elements. Ropes of green vines, orange fire and a blue flowing substance Lenobia guessed was water. Neferet was now screaming in agony as Zoey created a spirit bomb of love and goodness explode inside her. Love, Lenobia knew, was what had banished them. It caused Neferet pain because it was not something she was made to handle, it was a fire that seared her sinister heart.

Kalona threw his angered gaze over to A-ya, she looked as powerful as the Goddess herself. Gritting his teeth against the pain of his shattered wing he dived for Zoey, who was knocked sideways in the nick of time by Lenobia a large rifle in her hands. Lifting his arms Kalona picked Lenobia up into the air, his large hands around her neck, bruising her flesh. The rifle had clattered to the floor. He applied pressure at the spot they both knew would snap the neck and instantly kill her but dropped her sharply as an electric shock tore through his body. Crying out in both rage and pain he swooped low once more, drew Zoey off her feet and flew out of the smashed window carrying her flailing body above the balcony.

Eliás dropped beside Lenobia, lifting her into his arms, a panic stricken expression on his handsome features.

"Lenobia?! Lenobia can you hear me?" He commanded urgently, unaware that Zoey was now flying through the air, frantic and helpless.

"I'm … fine. Just a few bruises nothing more. Zoey … where is Zoey?!" Lenobia pulled out of his arms and stood too quickly, her face far paler than usual. She felt like she had been floored by a 19.2 and then double-barrelled for good measure. She swayed violently but Eliás' strong hands steadied her.

"Lenobia! He took her!" Shaunee cried, pointing through the broken glass window into the darkened sky above the patio on which she was now standing. Her cappuccino coloured face was filled with fear and hatred.

"I can get up there."

Lenobia looked to him as he were a grassroots pupil who had just asked if they could ride her unbroken three year-old. "What???"

Eliás was already flexing his fingers and centring himself. "I'll be fine." His voice was firm, sure and fierce, even though himself, he wasn't so sure. Pressing hard and allowing his electromagnetic fields to pulsate around him, Eliás lifted himself through the air and directly after Kalona. The cold wind breezed easily around him and caressed his cheeks as he rose higher and higher, leaving the fledglings and the other Vamps on the patio beneath him.

Raising his arms he threw a bright white ball of high voltage electricity at Kalona causing him to swerve in mid air to avoid it. Eliás threw another, faster and with more potential impact, aiming for his left wing. With a loud cry Kalona dropped Zoey, who fell to the patio with a sickening thud and a piercing shriek of pain. Kalona dived for her but Lenobia was already standing over her, protecting her, she fired bullet after bullet at him, causing him to veer and spin through the air. Eliás took his chance.

Rising even higher, so as to come to eye level with the fallen angel, Eliás sent shock after shock, wave after wave, of strong electrical current at the immortal, causing him to tremble and shout with anger and anguish. To his complete horror Kalona smiled evilly after dodging several attacks and let out a low, malevolent, malicious bark of laughter.

A drop of water landed on Eliás' cheek. He froze. The science was already buzzing around in his mind. Water. H2O. Two hydrogens, one oxygen. Two covalent bonds, two lone electron pairs. Impure, it was an electrical conductor, and had the second highest heat capacity of any known substance. More drops hit him, in a matter of seconds going from the odd one to being so thick that he could barely see through it. His skin crawled with dread as his clothes began to stick to him, the weight of the water forcing him to use more energy simply to keep himself up. He could already hear the steam rising off his skin and static shocks due to the charge induced in himself to do so.

If he struck again, he would electrocute himself. Kalona spread his wings wide and flew at incredible speed towards Eliás, whom was now completely defenceless.

Eliás took one final look towards the ground longingly, before facing the oncoming fallen immortal, who was speeding towards him. With an unflinching gaze he readied himself, his electricity shimmering just beneath the surface of his skin, already burning him. Kalona was mere yards away.

Panicking slightly as he looked into solid, sinful amber eyes, Eliás dropped several feet in the air just missing the outstretched hands of Kalona. When Kalona's body was directly above him, Eliás made a rope of electricity, winding it around Kalona and watching as it absorbed through his skin.

Rain pelted down fast and unrelenting as Kalona felt the torture of Eliás' power soaking into his pores. The electricity, instead of simply burning him as it had previously, was now stuck inside him with nowhere to go. As the rain come down upon this unrelenting electricity, stuck in limbo within Kalona, he realised he would fry.

Eliás rubbed his hands together and his palms glowed bright white, flicking his hands two long beams of electricity emitted from his palm, reaching halfway between Kalona and himself before a bloodcurdling cry pierced the night. The bubble around him flickered somewhat before vanishing. Eliás heard Kalona fall from the sky once more, writhing in pain upon the patio, and then little more.

Felling his veins clog with unwanted electricity Elias felt his body heat rise quickly as his affinity caught within him, with nowhere to go. His palms burned first, causing him to cry out. The anguish and torment began to rake his body, like a thousand daggers piercing his skin. Roaring as the sting in his eyes became an unbearable burn, Eliás curled in on himself in the air. The pain became far too much and he fell to the ground with a thud, becoming caked in blood. But this blood was not his own, it was Zoey's.

Zoey lay, a small silver handle just visible in her chest, crumpled on Anastasia, the dagger releasing pints of blood that now covered the floor. Anastasia had tears running down her face as she held her High Priestess tight within her arms, rocking her and whispering words of comfort. Lenobia was pointing a rifle at a bound Neferet, who was also on the floor, but was encased in hot fire ropes created by Shaunee.

Eliás whimpered, his body throbbing with more pain than he had ever imagined possible, not far from Kalona's writhing form. His eyes teared as every neurone in him screamed, his heartbeat, all he could hear in his ears, was slowing. His vision swirled and everything went black as he finally lost consciousness.

It would all end soon.

* * *

**R&R!**


	16. Trinity

_**Resurrected**_

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**Me: Wow, getting to the end of this fic! R&R!**

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"_No._..." Lenobia gasped, as she watched Eliás fall from the black sky at a rate of knots. He hit the ground hard, causing it to crack around him. Her legs started numbly moving and she ran over to him – he wasn't moving, he wasn't breathing...

She knelt down on one knee next to him and began to fumble around in her pocket. She could actually smell burning flesh.

"Idiot." She scolded him, even though he couldn't hear her, rummaging through old tissues and bits of baling twine, "You fried yourself like a piece of meat!!!" She finally found what she was looking for. A penknife was always a necessity. She shouted for help as she realised that he couldn't drink if he didn't have a swallow reflex.

Laila had appeared out of nowhere, and was holding her hand over Eliás forehead before Lenobia had even registered that she was there. "Laila?" she said, "I thought you were staying behind the front line?"

With a concentrated look on her face, and not talking her eyes off her patient, she answered. "I know what it felt like when I thought I had lost my mate." She said, "I don't want any of you to lose yours."

"He's not my..."

"No..." Laila interrupted, "It's not an open wound..."

Lenobia's voice became faint. "What?"

"I can't heal it if it's not an open wound..." she said.

"Can you bring him around?"

"I'm trying..."

Eliás began to stir, his eyelids twitching, his mouth tensing. "Get some blood down him fast." Laila ordered, before sprinting off to attend to Zoey.

"What are you, planning on being served in a Chinese restaurant???"

He sighed, damp air filling his bleeding lungs. He closed his eyes slowly and then opened them again. "I had to..." he murmured, "_I had to..._"

She rolled up her sleeve and raised the blade.

"_Wait_..." he said, "_You don't have to_..."

"Eliás, you're _dying_." She begged him, "Let me help you..." she said, making a cut in her wrist. Imagining the pain he must have been in made her feel ill. She could see his eyes light up against his will as blood seeped form the wound, but still he didn't move. She sighed, and scratched her head awkwardly. "Look." She said, "My blood is, very uninteresting. It's never even caused an Imprint, so just drink it. If it saves your life, I don't care."

It was true. She didn't quite understand it, why she was unlike other vampyres who imprinted people left right and centre. It never bothered her at all, in fact she liked it. It meant that she didn't have a human trying to profess his love to her every five seconds. She truly believed that if one ever did, she would wring his neck. The perks of the actual drinking were still there, but she drank because she had to, not because she was trying to complicate her life further.

She lowered her cut wrist to his mouth, where a few drops fell onto his lips. He licked them warily, before finally giving in and sucking on the cut. Within the first few seconds, his skin regained its colour and the bruises she was sure were present on his back had faded into almost nothing. The strength in his muscles returned, and he gently raised his right hand to hold her wrist closer. She sat quietly, while the vibrations she could feel from him told her he was suppressing a moan. It did feel good, so much better than usual, and she gasped as a wave of pleasure sent tingles up her spine. Lenobia forced herself to ignore it. She supposed she was so used to it. It was mind over matter. He groaned and held her wrist away again.

"That bad?"

His entire body shuddered, and he paused simply to breathe. "No..." he whispered, "That good."

It was. Any other time, any other place, he would have drunk more, crawled on top of her. He couldn't drink more. If he did, there would be nothing he could do to stop himself. He erased his mind clear, but it still didn't change what his body was doing. It didn't even change what both mind and body wanted.

"You have some strange tastes in the Czech Republic."

"Not as many as the Germans."

"Come on." She said, ushering him to his feet too, "We have a war to win."

"The Germans weren't too good at that either."

Lenobia looked murderous. "I know, it was merely satirical." He said, looking tactful for a moment.

They looked to each other. "Zoey." They said together.

Laila was holding her hand hovering over Zoey's wound, the silver dagger, shining red with her blood, was cast carelessly on the floor next to them. The wound was slowly disappearing, but it was taking far too long. The other three elements were holding, but Lenobia could see Earth's vines shrivelling and Spirit waning without Zoey's influence. Horror filled her eyes as she saw that Neferet was no longer secure...

"_Stop."_

And then Spirit was around them. Inside them, everywhere, with Zoey still on the floor. The voice went straight to the core of their beings, flushing out all of their hopes, fears, thoughts into a seemingly gushing river, leaving them calm. It was the strangest feeling any of them had ever encountered. There was a blinding flash of white light, one that almost seemed to knock Zoey back into consciousness. She lay, blurry-eyed and bruised, still over Anastasia's lap, gazing at the light. They say that when you die you see a white light. Was she dead? Was this the end? She felt numb all over, no pain, no nothing. Just what she saw. Neferet blinked twice slowly, her limbs going limp in their struggle against her bonds. The light, now glowing every single colour you could imagine, was taking a form, a female one. Through it emerged floor-length honey-blonde curls and waves, emerald green eyes, enough to hold a thousand seas, her skin was sun-kissed, and what Zoey expected next was a face so beautiful, incomparable, to mortal or immortal, like the last time. When it wasn't, she felt the calm go, to be replaced with shock.

It was Nyx, of that she was sure.

But, it was another version of her.

"_Nyx..._" Zoey murmured, confusion printed on her face. As they heard it, all of them covered their hearts with their fists and hung their heads low.

The Goddess turned to Zoey, her smile so radiant that happiness filled her to the brim. _"Do not fear, my child." _She said, glancing down to Zoey's wound. Light surrounded it, and faded, leaving her skin and even her clothes unscathed. _"You have fought bravely." _

"_I don't understand..._" she said, feeling, shamefully, like she was looking in a mirror.

"_I did not wish to alarm you before." _Said the Goddess, _"This is my true form."_ She faced Neferet again, her green gaze not angry, not happy, simply blank. _"You will not harm her."_

Neferet chuckled. "You mean You will not harm Yourself?"

Nyx now wore a grim face. _"I am sorry." _She said simply, _"I was wrong."_ Her expression became angry, _"But that does not make you right!" _she saw Zoey get to her feet, and took two long strides back, removing Herself from between Zoey and Neferet, so the three stood as three points of a triangle. _"I want to explain to you why you have gone through so much." _She said. It wasn't addressed to either Zoey or Neferet. _"Long ago, I made the mistake of believing that, as an immortal, I could embrace Good by banishing Evil. My own Darkness. I banished the Darkness inside me away. Neferet is the part of me that I cast out."_

Zoey's mind reeled. "You mean, Neferet, is You?"

Nyx nodded. _"I was wrong. I understand now that it is not the ability to banish Evil that determines who you are. It is how you live with it and still embrace Good. Zoey..." _She said, _"A-ya. I am sorry. You have been through so much for me and yet you do not properly know why. Kalona was once my warrior. When I banished him, I also banished the part of me that loved him." _Zoey stared, and Nyx continued. _"Zoey, you are that part of me. You are my love, my grace, my power." _She looked as if she was about to cry, _"When I banished him, you followed him. I did not mean for you to."_ She smiled, _"You have taken on quite the life of your own."_

"But..." Zoey protested, "I can't be You! I'm not even a vampyre yet!" she began to speak more quietly, as if trying to fathom out why for herself, "I'm only mortal..." she said, her gaze so straight it sliced through the air between them, "Why have you gifted me like this? Nothing about me is special! I'm nothing against You, I... I just can't be!"

"_Precisely."_ Said Nyx kindly, _"You are the part of me that is human. You are the most valuable, the most precious. And the strongest. I would entrust my children to no one else." She turned to Neferet, "I think you've done enough damage for one lifetime." _

Neferet, as opposed to putting up a fight, as Zoey presumed she would, seemed to go dozy, sliding into unconsciousness, as did the exhausted Kalona. Their bodies glowed with a white radiance, and gradually, they began to disintegrate, like they were being corroded away into a thousand tiny sparks, the sparks filling the air around them like fireflies, dancing in the heat filled haze, like watching flecks of sparks rise from a bonfire. Not one of them could remove their eyes from the sight in front of them, not until every last piece was gone, all of them collecting into a ring, before pushing outwards, becoming fainter, and fainter, until there was nothing.

"What just happened...?" Zoey whispered, completely and utterly in the awe of the clarity and peace surrounding her.

Nyx smiled. _"I have also learnt, in my time, that love can outweigh any darkness. Even mine. If I had given her that in her first life, we might not have been standing here now."_

"Where did Neferet and Kalona go?"

"_I cannot undo what I have done, I cannot take back what I have given. Neferet, back to the Beginning. Completely reborn, with no memory of any of her lives. As she was in the Beginning, Marked from birth. But this time, she will be born to a family that will love and protect her. I truly believe that that can overcome the Darkness. Kalona..." _Her face looked a little more grim, _"He will not plague this Earth again for as long as he shall live." _She turned to the others to address them, _"Anastasia." _She said, causing the petite vampyre's head to snap up, _"I have some people who are very keen to see you."_

More little bright lights swirled in front of their eyes, the brightness reflecting off Anastasia's tear-stained face. She blinked a few times as they took transparent forms. Her hands covered her mouth briefly, before lowering again to just below her chin.

"Masha?" she said, her voice so faint it was barely there, "Alexej?"

Maria and Alexej both had massive grins plastered on their faces. "Nashtenka, long time no see!"

Anastasia ran towards them, throwing her arms around them. When her arms didn't just travel straight through them and landed squarely on their backs, she was home.

"_I've missed you all so much..._" she whispered into the backs of their heads.

"_We've missed you too..."_ said Alexej, _"Maria is so boring!"_

"_I am not!"_ the Grand Duchess scowled, _"It's, strange not to be with you anymore..." _she said, stroking Anastasia's hair gently.

"Is everybody alright???" she asked them, coming out of the hug and gripping Maria on the arms.

"_They're fine now, we have all found peace."_

"Has Mama ever forgiven me?"

Maria shot an invisible glance at Dragon and beamed. _"No." _She said,_ "I don't think she ever will." _She giggled, _"But Mama never approves of anything, I wouldn't take it personally."_

She laughed. If Olga had married the King of Sheba Mama would have found something to disapprove of. "And Papa?"

Alexej clung like a limpet to Anastasia's side. _"He doesn't care." _He said, _"Not one bit. All he cares about is that you're alright and that you're happy. They send you all their love."_

Anastasia wiped tears away with her sleeve. "Tell them I love them too."

Maria read into Anastasia's face. _"Now was not your time to see them, Nastiya. Now is your time to live." _She said, as Anastasia stepped to the side, allowing Maria to talk to all of them. _"After all..." _she concluded, _"The name means 'she will rise again'. Resurrected."_ She touched her little sister on the shoulder. _"We have to go." _She said, giving her one last hug, _"We shall meet again, my sister." _

Going to Nyx's side, both Maria and Alexej began to disappear in the same way that Neferet and Kalona did. Maria was holding back tears, Alexej looked woeful, but smiled and waved at her. Anastasia waved back, standing on the platform, her eyes following the leaving train.

"_Thank you my children."_ She said, _"For what you have done for me." _

Zoey watched, tears in her eyes as she saw the same white light glow from beneath Nyx's skin, and as she went from solid, to transparent.

"Wait!" Zoey called, the tears running down her cheeks freely, "If I am You... I don't even know how to write a formal letter, or, or even use a tumble dryer or make scrambled egg! Tell me how I can be better, I need to know how to be better!"

Nyx gave a smile. _"All you need to do..." _She said, _"Is be you." _She held her hands out towards them all, as if inviting them to embrace her, _"Blessed be my children."_

She was gone.

A gust of wind from outside picked up pieces of broken furniture and shattered glass, blowing them across the cold stone floor.

* * *

"All aboard."

The vampyre pilot made her way down the steps from the cabin, her crisp white shirt creasing in the breeze.

"We need to stay on schedule so as not to miss our airspace." She explained to them, smiling, "We need to go." Everyone dumped their hand luggage on the tarmac.

Lenobia stepped into Erce's open arms, hugging her friend tightly. The airport, barely even an airport, more a massive stretch of tarmac, shimmered in the illusion of air beating from the jets of the planes.

Lenobia patted Erce's back gently. "Thank you my friend."

Erce patted her back. "Any time Lenobia, make sure you come and visit me soon." She said warmly.

Everyone seemed to be forming a line, each one taking it in turns to shake hands and hug. Zoey, exhausted, but glowing with something that could only be described as victorious, embraced everyone she could find, anyone she could envelope in her arms, in an almost drunken episode. It still hadn't quite hit home. Neferet, Kalona, gone. Her thoughts went back to Heath. He was flying with them too, Lenobia had organised for his body to go with them back to his parents, but she couldn't help but think that this was her fault. Even when he told her it wasn't. She was suddenly having to hold back tears. He shouldn't be flying back in the cargo hold in a body bag. He shouldn't! He deserved to be alive! High Priestess Rosalina had already explained to the boy's parents what had happened, but that didn't make it alright. While everyone was saying goodbye to Erce and Eliás, Lenobia put her arm around Zoey's shoulder.

"I know what you're thinking, you know." She said sympathetically, giving the shoulder a rub.

Zoey looked away into the oncoming breeze. "Did your intuition tell you?"

Lenobia shook her head woefully. "There are times when we don't even need it."

"Hm." Zoey hung her head down, "You're a clever vampyre Lenobia."

"I'm not going to pretend to try and know what you've been through." She said, "But, death, isn't the end. Heath doesn't blame you. That's all that matters."

Zoey's mouth creaked into a smile. "Thanks."

"Go on." She reassured, as she let go of the fledgling and let her rejoin her friends.

As she saw the girl away, her ears detected the sound of footsteps approaching her from the side. Turning to face them, her gaze settled on Eliás Svboda.

"So I guess this is goodbye." She said, smiling as the gentle wind blew her hair around her shoulders.

"I guess it is." He said, in a way that combined matter-of-fact with cheek. He took a more serious tone. "Thank you."

"Thank _you_." She said, holding out her hand. Taking his wrist in a firm grasp, she shook it slowly, "Merry meet, merry part."

"And merry meet again." He finished.

The jets were firing up. The Tulsa plane was scheduled to leave first, before the Prague plane, and the cabin crew ushered the passengers onto the aircraft, checking seatbelts and shutting the overhead lockers. Lenobia's hand felt horribly cold against the metal of the handrail up the steps, not looking back over her shoulder as she went. Life, as she had always believed, was far better kept simple.

The take-off completely passed her by. Trying to shut out the sound of the engines and the chattering behind her, she took deep breaths and tried to sleep. Sleep wasn't coming. Not now, probably not until she was so exhausted she dropped. Fidgeting in her seat, she kept trying to find a position that was comfortable. None were. Finally giving up about an hour into the flight, and slightly curious as to the lack of chatter coming from behind, she peered around the edge of her seat into the isle. She smiled. So many happy endings. Dragon and Anastasia were asleep in each other's arms, their faces peaceful and content, their journey finally done. Complete, as were their souls once more. She reflected on the thoughts she had had just after Anastasia had been taken. Wondering, trying to imagine what was going through Dragon's head, and more importantly his heart. Leaving the key in the lock of the rapier case. Letting him decide. She could very well have come down to another lifeless corpse the next morning. The sight of them now simply made her want to chuckle. Then there was Loren and Laila. A pairing Lenobia did not fully understand, she did not even think they themselves understood it, least of all Loren. They were sitting together, Laila's head was lolling against Loren's chest, she was out for the count. Loren however, was awake, and was looking down at her, in a way that was nearly fond. His fingers were entwined in her hair, like he could be nursing a sleeping child. How awkward it must be to love without wanting to. Without even having the heart for it. Maybe Loren had not been so weak after all. It didn't make him a better person, it didn't justify, it just explained. Just that. If anything was going to change him, it would be her. Aphrodite and Darius weren't even worth looking at, unless you were into muted porn. Damien and Jack were asleep too, and Zoey and Stark, well, were falling asleep still. Only the Twins made the slightest bit of sound, and even that was hushed for the sake of their fellow passengers.

Lenobia sighed and sat back in her seat. She was already formulating a list of things she had to do when she got back. Book the farrier, call the vet for flu and tet vaccinations, order in more glucosamine and chondritin MSM, they were low on magnesium supplies, book flights to get to the postponed Hengstschau in Nord-Rhein Westfalen, if she could hopefully making time to see her good friend Isabell Werth and her baby son. She even began to list the jobs that she knew Juliane would have already done, like lunging the new youngster and poulticing a puncture wound on one of the schoolmasters.

It was far too easy, when one is half asleep, to think of things that are completely unnecessary, unrelated, sometimes even surreal. Glimpses of the young Czech High Priest floated around behind her eyelids. She felt a little glimmer of superiority, an inkling of satisfaction, because she could read him like an open book, when no one else could. They were very similar, he and she. Both strict, pedantic, immaculate. All be it for different reasons. She was like that because, as a horsewoman, that's the way things were done. It wasn't for any particular reason other than that, it was simple and easy, and even so, it was more than most of her third form students ever managed to grasp. Was perfection really too much to ask for? She pondered. Eliás was different. She could tell, from his reaction to spilling the coffee, to the way he presented himself, to his posture, his general indulgence, that his strive for perfection was not rooted there. It stemmed from fear. Fear that one wrong move, one hair out of place, one day off, might result in his dismissal from his position. His ambition, his utter willingness to endeavour was phenomenal. He was fully worthy of sitting at the same table as the High Priestesses. Nyx had gifted him for a reason, and Lenobia was only just beginning to see the beauty of these reasons. She felt incredibly honoured, and considered herself lucky to have met him.

So why now, as she left her home-continent once again, was something telling her otherwise?

* * *

**R&R!**


	17. I'm Coming Home

_**Resurrected**_

* * *

**Me: Hi guys! Wow, penultimate chapter! Thanks for sticking with this everyone, it's been great fun to write, I'd also like to thank my lovely beta for this chapter Tsuki-Himitsu. So I was bored today in the snow and had nothing better to do than write this lol.**

**Just a few notes.**

**Hehe I love languages. The first conversation between Juliane and Lenobia is in German. Anastasia speaks to her uncle in Russian, before talking to Adélaïde in French. And as it says below, Dragon speaks to Rosalina in European Spanish. Just to avoid confusion hehe. And for further down the chapter, the Landgestüt Warendorf and Neustadt an der Dosse are very famous horse studs on opposite sides of Germany, if you're wondering what the reference means :)**

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Rosalina met the first car at the gates. Gesturing to the porters to take everybody's luggage, she greeted them with unrequited enthusiasm. Lenobia climbed out of the driver's side, tired, but happy to be home. As Anastasia, Nolan, Loren and Laila got out of the car, she gave a very sly smile. There was shock, yes, but it was like she had expected it, just a little bit. Anastasia knew, Rosalina Medina was not the kind of person you could surprise. The vampyres, as well as the Spanish ones, had collected outside, their jaws dropped when they saw. Lenobia pulled herself away from the others, and immediately joined Juliane.

"Schön dich wiederzuseh'n." She said, "Ich kann nur davon ausgeh'n dass uns alles entlich wieder gut geht." _It's great to see you. I can only presume that all is well for us._

"Ja kannst du." Lenobia smiled, "Es ist vorbei." _You can. It's over._

"Ich freu mich schon." _I'm glad._

"Nun sag mal, was du mit meinem Pferdhof gemacht hast..." _Now, tell me what you've done to my yard..._

Anastasia was instantly teleported back in time as all these faces that constituted her life came into view. Dimitri Mihailov was the first to come through the shock. She hugged him like a long-lost father. "Dyudya! Ya skuchala po tebya!" _Uncle! I've missed you._

After her uncle came Adélaïde Ségaèle, the craziest Frenchwoman in all of France, who enveloped her in a bear hug. "Ma Cherie, je suis tellement heureuse! Je pensais que je ne te reverrai jamais!" _My dear, I'm so happy! I thought I'd never see you again!_

The scene was even cracking Rosalina's calm façade. "Señor Lankford..." she began, reverting back to their native Spanish, "No sé qué decir."_ I don't know what to say._

"Ni yo." _Nor I. _He replied. "Es un milagro." _It's a miracle._

* * *

_**Wir beide kenn'n uns gut  
besser als gedacht  
Durch deine Straße zogen  
wir so manche Nacht  
Du hast mich bewacht,**_

_**Und jetzt zeigst du mir  
das wir uns nie verliern  
Was uns verbindet  
das krieg ich nur bei dir  
nur bei dir,**_

_**Ich komm nach Haus.**_

_**Ich komm nach Haus.**_

_**~ German: Nach Haus, by Silbermond.**_

* * *

_(We both know each other well_

_Better than we thought_

_Through your street we spent_

_So many a night_

_You watched over me._

_And now you show me_

_That we'll never lose each other_

_What ties us together_

_I share that with only you_

_I'm coming home._

_I'm coming home._

_~ English: Coming Home, by Silbermond_

* * *

Lenobia was finally fully happy. A full week had gone. A week. Time passes quickly when you live for longer, but even so, no need to blow it all like that. Settling back down to normal life was the most stressless, easy thing in the world. It was almost anticlimactic, how they came so close to dying, and now it was like trying to pretend it never happened.

It was Friday early. She had been up for hours. The horses were fed, watered, mucked out, rugged up against the snow that was now falling just before the House of Night broke up for Christmas. It was her last lesson of the term: the Sixth Form top set. This was always the easiest. Lenobia was the only professor that setted her students. She divided them into three groups right from the word go in the Third Form: Those that knew what they were talking about, those that thought they knew what they were talking about, and then the grassroots pupils, who knew nothing about horses but were keen to learn. It was impossible to teach one year group together if there were those that already had experience, it was a waste of their time and hers. This was the knowledgeable group of Sixth Formers. And it was a theory lesson. That meant she stood and taught using a PowerPoint presentation, whilst they reclined in armchairs in what she called the lecture theatre, which was less a lecture theatre than it was an empty room with lots of comfy chairs. As she spoke, the plastic horse that she used to teach them the points of the horse, as well as rugging and tacking up caught her eye. Affectionately referred to by the students as Neville due to his goose rump, the dummy was lavishly decorated with tinsel and hat a Santa hat balanced between its ears. It made her lips tweak up in a smirk. They were fonder of Neville than the real horses.

She clicked the button in her hand and the PowerPoint moved to the next slide. "Now, when diagnosing pregnancy in a mare the first is assessing the mare's behaviour by daily teasing, yes go on, laugh, from day 12 to 24 when pregnant mares should aggressively reject the male. Teasing..." she began to laugh herself, "Is a very important part of routine stud farm management and is an important asset to the vet's reproductive examinations. However, mares vary enormously in their display of signs of oestrus and to some extent this is influenced by the technique used to tease the mare. Some mares will display oestrus signs readily, even to other mares or people. So, with all this in mind, how can breeders be sure of a pregnancy diagnosis?" she looked around the room. The Sixth Formers were long past putting their hands up, the shout-out policy was acceptable here.

One looked up from scribbling in her notebook. "Veterinary diagnostics." She said, as if to state the obvious.

"Absolutely, what kinds of veterinary diagnostics?"

This time a boy spoke up. "Measurement of hormone concentrations?"

"Good Matt, this route of investigation is certainly possible, convenient with uncooperative animals and inadequate examination facilities. What else...? Elise."

"Ultrasound."

"Excellent, ultrasound. Possibly the best method, it can detect twin pregnancies, gender, as well as foetal wellbeing. Both of these methods will be performed by a vet, who will then be able to tell you the age of the zygote. Now, what can any of you tell me about AI?"

"Artificial insemination..." said Elise confidently, "Is the placing of semen in the reproductive tract of a mare by means other than sexual intercourse with the intention of impregnation."

"A perfect answer straight from Wikipedia." Lenobia commented dryly. "But Elise is right, AI is when humans intervene in reproduction to raise the odds of a successful conception. Whilst, the foal is still biologically that of the mare and stallion, it is not conceived by natural means. Whilst artificial insemination is not a cheap option there is a general agreement that it possesses a number of distinct advantages over natural breeding.

The main advantage is that the best stallion for your mare can be used irrespective of location. Mares that cannot travel or have a foal at foot, or mares with an injury not detrimental to foaling but that prevents them from supporting a natural covering can all benefit from AI. More importantly the use of AI can prevent the transmission of infection and lessen the risk of injury to both the stallion and the mare. Chilled semen is most commonly used. This involves the semen being collected from the stallion, extended and placed in an Equitainer to be sent to the mare for immediate insemination. By making chilled semen available from a stallion it is possible for the stud to make their stallion accessible to mares based some distance from them. Thus a stallion in Landgestüt Warendorf can provide semen for a mare in Neustadt an der Dosse!"

Lenobia glanced down at her watch, "And, I think that's about it for your last lesson." The students immediately put the lids back on their pens and began to get up from their chairs, "Your exams..." they all groaned, "The written exam will be on the 7th January, the mounted practical is on the 10th, the show-jumping and cross-country course will be open for walking any time from nine pm the day before, and the dressage test will be Elementary 53. The management practical is on the 12th. You know the drill."

There was a chorus of yeses and Merry Christmases as they filed out of the classroom, leaving Lenobia to shut down the computer. Christmas was, of course, technically a Christian celebration, but no one saw any reason why vampyres could not send cheesy presents to each other, eat a big meal together or put up decorations. What the People of Faith didn't know wouldn't hurt them. Waiting for the program to close down, she took another look at Neville. Neville... What a name for a plastic horse. Harry Potter was clearly far too popular. Finally finished for the day, Lenobia pulled her keys out of her pocket and locked the door, taking a breath of the crisp freezing air. The snow was so beautiful. Lenobia set off towards the main building, knowing exactly where the warmest building on the entire campus was.

The High Priestess' office was in the oldest part of the Tulsa House of Night, its walls were lined with old bookshelves containing books which could have dated from the dark ages, some of the titles on the ancient binding in languages long forgotten. Stepping into it was like time-travelling. Lenobia could at that moment, easily have been stepping into the eighteenth century. The flat screen computer on the desk was the only piece of modern equipment in sight, its LCD screen flickering in the dimmed light of the room.

"I have never been so glad to see a dirty stable in my life."

"Ugh... I'm glad everything's back to normal with you."

"Nastiya, staring at that screen is the last thing that's going to help."

"Well, I can lie in bed and do nothing, or I can do some work. Half of them are jetting across the country tonight, I've organised the minibuses to take them to the airport at silly hours in the morning, got their travel details for next term, Goddess even their insurance details! When you realise you're completely responsible for so many fledglings it's like the proverbial kick up the backside."

Lenobia took a seat in the armchair next to the fireplace, the shadows of its flames dancing across her beautiful features, which were frozen in a brief concentration. "Do you think Neferet will come back?"

"Nyx said she would." Said Anastasia, "But completely reborn again, as a child, as she was in the Beginning. It's humbling to realise that even the Goddess can make mistakes, and it's also comforting when She can find innocence in darkness."

"It is." Lenobia agreed.

Anastasia sighed happily, despite her unusually pale colour. "It was amazing to see them again." She said, twisting her silver pen in her fingers, the metal glinting in the light.

"Your brother and sister."

"They haven't changed." She said, "They are exactly the same. I remember, I remember when Maria noticed my Mark. We shared a room always, I suppose I should have expected it."

"I'm surprised no one noticed, how you reacted to daylight."

"In the last few years we were under house arrest, sometimes we weren't even allowed outside, sometimes the windows in the House would be shuttered closed and it was dark. I love the Sun. I remember dearly missing lying on the grass, letting it soak through my skin. Before I was Marked, I missed it so much that I threw the shutters open, desperate to see the tiniest ray of light. One of the sentries fired at me, and they very nearly didn't miss. I was Marked not long after and needless to say I never tried it again. It was just a convenient coincidence, I suppose. And Maria, when she saw... The way she smiled and hugged me and told me how everything was going to be fine, it brought that all back, it was identical." She cupped her chin in her hands and leant on her desk like a little girl, "It was, just a nice last memory to have of them."

"Why do you think Nyx sent Maria and Alexej specifically?"

"They were the two closest to me." She said, "And probably the two most like me. I'm sort of halfway between the two. Before, whenever I thought of them, my mind would always flit back to that cellar. I know how terrified we all were when they started firing. I know they died slowly, and painfully, and..." she swallowed the lump in her throat, as her voice dried up, "I didn't want that to be the last thing they knew. And I spent years wondering, if they ever did find peace."

Lenobia nodded to her kindly. "And you know now that they did."

"I do. I know they're okay now. They exist, somewhere, somehow. And Nyx is watching over them." She shifted in her chair, putting the pen down, "And are you okay?"

"I've never been better." Lenobia grinned, "Happy to be home."

"You know what I think?" Anastasia said, "I think you liked that little electrokinesist."

Lenobia snorted. "That little electrokinesist lives on another continent, Anastasia."

Anastasia suddenly went very pale. "Excuse me." She said, before running towards the bathroom. Lenobia heard the sound of her being sick, and immediately got to her feet.

"This still isn't getting any better?" she asked, holding Anastasia's beautiful long hair out of the way for her. Anastasia reached for some toilet paper, and wiped her mouth. "Are you okay?" Lenobia asked. Anastasia nodded slightly, and accepted Lenobia's support as she washed her mouth out at the basin.

"Thank you." She said, as her friend passed her a towel, with which she dried her mouth and hands. "Not even blood makes it better."

"I don't understand it." said Lenobia, as they made their way out of the bathroom and sat in the armchairs near the crackling fire, "This has been going on all week. Did you feel like this when we were in San Clemente?"

"No, just since we got back."

"Maybe you should go to the Infirmary." Lenobia suggested.

At that moment there was a knock on the door. "Come in!" Anastasia called.

The door opened, revealing a human man in a bright orange fleece and a clipboard. "I was sent up here miss, I need a signature for a delivery from the High Priestess."

"Ah, great." Said Anastasia, indicating for the courier to come to her. Her hand wobbled as she took the clipboard and signed the form, clasping her stomach as she passed it back to him.

"Are you alright miss?" he asked.

Anastasia looked like she was about to get up and strangle him. "I keep being sick, things I usually like to eat smell like rotten eggs, and the moment anyone speaks I want to kill them!!! Of course I am not alright!!!" she shouted.

The courier looked a little taken aback, a puzzled look on his face as the blonde vampyre hushed the High Priestess, who suddenly looked as if she needed a hug. A family man himself, he had seen this many times before.

He shuffled uneasily. "I don't mean to sound out of place miss..." he said, "But it sounds as if you might be expecting, miss."

The blonde shot him a chilly glare, and he immediately regretted talking. "What are you talking about?"

"I mean..." he rolled his hand around and clasped at his palm with his fingers, like he expected the words to jump from there as opposed to his mouth, "Well, pregnant, miss."

Both of them glared. "I know what 'expecting' means, thank you." Said the blonde coldly, "Vampyres can't get pregnant." She looked at him again, "And why are you still here?"

"I need my pen back?"

Lenobia rolled her eyes and passed him the pen, and he left at a hurried rate as if escaping from a lion's den. "What an idiot." She said after the door had swung closed. Her expression returned to one of worry as Anastasia's hands covered her stomach gingerly.

Lenobia looked sympathetic. "Nastiya, I know how you feel, but you can't get pregnant, you're a vampyre."

There was a pregnant pause, excuse the pun, and Anastasia began to breathe deeply, like she was about to cry. Her lip trembled. "Lenobia..." she whimpered, placing her hand over her abdomen, "I think I'm going to be sick again..."

* * *

**R&R!**


	18. Epilogue: White Knights

_**Resurrected**_

* * *

**Me: Wow. I actually can't believe this is coming to an end now. It started off simply as a bunch of loopholes pulled together to try and make resurrection possible, in some world or another, and it's completely taken on a life of its own. I hope that, while I've entertained myself for hours writing this, that you guys have had fun reading it too. **

**I know it's not really about the main characters as much as most HON fics are, but when I read the books, I completely latched onto the only three professors that believe Zoey. There are so many unnecessary deaths, that I felt I had to shed some more light on them, to do those characters justice. **

**I'd like to thank everyone who has read this fic, for reviewing and supporting me, especially Tsuki-Himitsu, who has beta-ed for me, written for me and become a good friend along the way. Thank you.**

**So here I present you with the epilogue of Resurrected. The song is "Krieger des Lichts", which means "White Knights", by German band Silbermond. YouTube it, play it while you read this last chapter.**

**So after you've finished the story, here's some food for thought. Let me know your answers in reviews:**

**Who was it who was resurrected, and why?**

**What is the moral behind the story?**

**What does Lenobia mean when she refers to leaving the key in the lock?**

**Has Eliás actually imprinted with Lenobia?**

**Does Loren really love Laila, or is it the Imprint talking?**

**So read, laugh, enjoy, and remember, the farrier is always late.**

* * *

_**Sei wie der Fluss der eisern ins Meer fließt**_

_**Der sich nicht abbringen lässt egal wie schwer's ist**_

_**Selbst den größten Stein fürchtet er nicht**_

_**Auch wenn es Jahre dauert bis er ihn bricht**_

_**Und wenn dein Wille schläft dann weck ihn wieder**_

_**Denn in jedem von uns steckt dieser Krieger**_

_**Dessen Mut ist wie ein Schwert**_

_**Doch die größte Waffe ist sein Herz**_

_**~ German "Krieger des Lichts" by Silbermond**_

* * *

_Be like the river that unwaveringly flows into the sea,_

_That doesn't let itself be lead astray no matter how hard it gets,_

_It doesn't even fear the greatest stone,_

_Even if it takes years before it breaks through,_

_And if your will is sleeping then wake it again,_

_Because in every one of us there hides this fighter,_

_Whose courage is like a sword,_

_But the greatest weapon is his heart._

_~ English "White Knights" by Silbermond_

_

* * *

_

_Ten years later..._

* * *

Tiny little footsteps pitter-pattered over the soft fibres of a carpet, a cascade of loose honey-blonde curls following shortly on their tail. Two small palms pushed down on a heavy brass door handle, and a little face peered around the door.

"Mommy, they're here!"

So soon? The reunion wasn't due to start until seven. Anastasia Lankford looked over her shoulder. "Already?"

The little girl, aged exactly nine and three months, beamed from the doorway, already hyper at being allowed to wear her party dress. The tiny crescent moon on her forehead was the strangest thing about her, so quaint, but bolder than any statement or speech. She jumped up and down on the spot, excitement brimming like a simmering pot threatening to boil over. "It's a stretch limo and everything!!!" she said.

Anastasia fastened her favourite necklace around her neck. It was the same one that had been the cause of her rather close shave with death, now exactly ten years ago. It didn't change anything. The necklace was still dear to her, it was still her little sentiment trinket from her father. It was a little bit of magic. She ran a hand through her hair again, before getting up from her dressing table and taking her daughter's hand. "Okay sweetie, let's go. Have you seen Daddy?"

Evie Lankford shook her head, her long hair swishing around her shoulders. "He said he was just going to check the lounge was ready."

"You ready to meet them?" The little girl beamed and nodded. "Okay then, let's go meet them."

Anastasia closed the door to their quarters and slid the key into the lock, turning it quickly, her hand still in Evie's. Now that was another little bit of magic. For vampyres to bear children was biologically impossible, and yet here she was, with the child she had carried and raised. Just like it was the most normal thing in the world. Evie had her blue eyes, but was blonde like her father. She had realised what had happened, when Nyx had said Neferet's soul would be reborn... She just never thought in a million years it would be to her. To others it had been a little strange, but to them, it had never been more simple. As far as they were concerned, they weren't bringing up Neferet. They were bringing up Evie.

"Good timing, they're here!"

Evie grinned. "Auntie Lenobia, you're late!"

Auntie Lenobia certainly was. The farrier had been late – which is something that after all these years, she really should have foreseen – which had left her forty minutes behind schedule. She was even later than Erce, whose flight had even managed to arrive on time for once. Smelling of burning hoof-horn and topped off with pieces of hay in her hair, she sprinted down the hall in the professor's building for the world's fastest shower, before almost running full pelt into Evie.

"Yes Auntie Lenobia, you are." Said Anastasia.

"The farrier was late."

"And what else is new?"

"Don't you have guests to greet?" said Lenobia, jogging on the spot, "I will be down in ten minutes!"

"I'm timing." Anastasia watched as Lenobia legged it to her quarters, before continuing downstairs to the gates.

"It's true Mom, farriers are always late."

* * *

The House of Night was a place that never changed. Not one bit. A place where vampyres from all over had spent their best, and worst days, some had been saved by it, others not. Standing in front of it now, and it could easily have been ten years previously, when the limo was not a limo, but a yellow taxi, when the snow that fell around them was not snow, but driving rain. It was strange how those initial memories of the place were more powerful than the last ones, the tearful goodbyes, the hugs, the kisses, the world out there, waiting for them.

None of them had been back here since that day. Zoey Redbird's long dark hair was tucked into the back of her coat, her crown dotted with the snowflakes that stuck themselves to her. She missed Tulsa, and even the rest of America greatly. She had been in Venice for far too long.

Behind her stood the people that had stood behind her all along. Aphrodite LaFont and her mate Darius were the only two she had seen face to face regularly since leaving here. They had come to Venice with her, Aphrodite being Zoey's trusted advisor on the Council. The others, it had been too long. Contact through Facebook was just wasn't quite as good as the real thing. Yes, the High Priestess of all vampyres had Facebook. Damien had travelled the world, and was training to become a High Priest, with Jack at his side. Erin and Shaunee, were, as Zoey had always predicted they might, doing something that was completely unrelated to the vampyre world. Both had worked as models, before turning to designing, shoes, clothes, anything to do with fashion. And Stevie-Rae. Stevie-Rae, her best friend forever and for always, the High Priestess of the red vampyres. Zoey felt sorry that Stevie-Rae had not been with her for those fateful days ten years ago, but the red fledglings were proving to be more than a handful.

The sound of the porters unloading their luggage from the car woke her from her thoughts, as did the freezing cold wind eating at her legs through her tights. Entwining her fingers with Stark's, she began to wade through the thick carpet of snow towards the main building, memories leaping out at her from nooks and crannies of her mind she had never even known about.

"Merry meet!!!"

The call was so familiar. Zoey gave a massive grin. "Anastasia!!!" she said, unlinking herself from Stark and launching herself into Anastasia's arms.

"How are you Zoey?" she asked as she gave her a monster hug.

"Glad to be back." She said, letting go so the others could hug her too. This was all an informal event. Zoey looked to Anastasia's side. "Hello..." she said, holding out her hand, "You must be Evie."

The little girl nodded and took Zoey's wrist. "Merry meet, High Priestess." She said.

"You can call me Zoey." She said, holding out her hand near her knee. "I haven't seen you since you were this big!"

"Alright everyone, let's go inside before we all catch hypothermia." Anastasia announced.

They followed Anastasia to the lounge, which was a large room used for functions, when the House of Night hosted events. The inside of it was decked out in festive decorations, millions of fairy-lights hung from everything in sight, tinsel hung abundantly from several evergreen trees. On the left hand side of the room, there was a huge table laid out with every kind of food they could imagine, the smell of wine and punch enriching the atmosphere of the room.

"Wow..." said Zoey as she went in. At the end of the table, she saw Dragon Lankford talking hurriedly with another vampyre, dressed smartly in a black waistcoat.

"Daddy!" Evie called, running over to him, "Daddy they're here!"

Dragon looked away from his conversation, nodded to the other vampyre and only just had time to move forward a few strides before he was pulled into a series of hugs. He was only released when Lucinda Gramy, Penthesilia, Patricia Nolan walked in, along with Erce, and two male vampyres and one female that Zoey didn't recognise.

"Zoey..." said Anastasia, "May I present Oliver Darkholme, Lin Tze Xing and Ava Austen, professors of Sociology, Tae Kwondo and Poetry respectively."

"Merry meet High Priestess." They all said, shaking her wrist in turn.

"Merry meet!" said Zoey, before realising that something was missing, "Wait... Where is Lenobia?"

Anastasia gave a knowing look. "The farrier was late."

* * *

Eliás Svboda had never been to Tulsa. Never even to America. He had flung his head back and laughed heartily when the security guard at customs asked him what part of Britain he came from, and then the expression on his face when he produced a Czech passport. Climbing out of the car, he wrapped his long coat around him. The snow was almost as bad here as it was in Prague.

He smiled as he saw Anastasia Lankford, now the High Priestess, standing outside the doors, waiting. "It's so good to see you again." He said, shaking her wrist.

"And you." She said, "Come on in, everyone else is already here."

"Am I late?"

"Of course not! I trust it was a good flight?"

"Very good."

"Now brace yourself, you may just be swept off your feet." She said, as she opened the doors. And sure enough, she was right. Hugs and greeting ensued, so much so, that by the end of it, Eliás thought his hand might fall off for all the shaking. Finally, he saw Dragon, and greeted him.

"It's been too long." He said.

Eliás too was immediately taken with the little girl with the crescent moon Mark at Dragon's side. "Is this...?"

He met Dragon eye to eye. Dragon nodded, before his face returned to that of a proud father. "This is my daughter Evie."

"Merry meet." He said, holding out his weary hand for the girl to shake. He remembered Dragon from that time in San Clemente, so broken that he could barely cling onto life, and now, as he held his arm around Evie's shoulder, he looked as if all the love was about to explode from inside him.

Eliás and Dragon continued to chat, their voices lost into the jumble of sounds that was the party. Neither of them heard the doors open again. Everyone became louder, and seemed to flock towards the door, the person's name on all of their tongues.

Lenobia.

Dressed in a black dress to mid-thigh and, as always, in knee-high boots, although these had heels as opposed to zips up the sides. It was the first time anyone except occasionally the other staff members had seen her not in britches and Königs. She had no make-up on – she didn't need it, nor has she had time to put any on, and her hair was loose down her back.

Now Lenobia was not the sort of person you can walk up to and hug. She seemed to be making an exception for now, that was how moving this whole thing was. Eliás held his composure. He owed her his life. He had never forgotten the pleasure that had spread through him like wildfire when he drank her blood, how he had had to stop, otherwise he may very well have jumped on her. How she had laughed when he spilled hot coffee all over her. He wasn't sure why he kept wanting to sneak glances at her when she wasn't looking. She was beautiful, yes, but so was every other female vamp in the world, he never had trouble controlling himself, even his own thoughts could be purely platonic if he wanted them to be, it was like setting himself to automatic pilot. So why was she different? He didn't know her well at all, just that had found each other similar. His mind flashed back once more to the beautiful vampyre in a Nazi army uniform, lying on that hospital bed, barely alive. There was so much blood that it was dripping to the floor at the side of the bed. Thirty bullets. He heard the nurse say. Shot thirty times where it mattered most. She had never been expected to survive, let alone walk, or even ride. At the time, he had wondered what her story was. A female, in the army, even a vampyre, was unheard of. Human women weren't allowed full stop. Why was she in the army? What had happened to her? And how had an army vamp ended up teaching at a House of Night?

When she came to him, she gave his wrist a firm shake, probably rendering it useless for the rest of the evening. "Good to see you."

He looked to her feet for a moment. "No Königs?"

She sighed. "No Königs."

The rest of the party went by in a whir. Everyone talking, laughing, drinking, all be it to no effect. After a few hours, Dragon Lankford noticed Evie sitting by the window, where a few minutes before she had been watching the falling snowflakes outside enchantedly. Her head was resting against the window pane, her eyes peacefully closed. Dragon whispered into Anastasia's ear, to which she gave a nod. Dragon went and knelt by Evie's side.

"Evie?" he asked, rubbing her arm gently, "Are you awake?"

She stirred momentarily, before yawning. "I'm sleepy..."

"Okay." He said, gathering her into his arms, "Time for bed, I think."

"That reminds me..." said Lenobia, glancing down at her watch, "I'll be right back." She excused herself and left, her blonde hair licking the door as she went.

She sighed to herself and watched her breath condense in front of her as she marched out of the back door of the staff room and down the path to the stables. She unlocked the door to her office and went inside, kicking off her heeled boots and replacing them with green wellies. She pulled on a heavy coat and gloves, and opened the cupboard, pulling out an Animalintex poultice and a vetwrap bandage. Running the tap at the sink until it was hot, she filled a little tub with water and put the poultice in it. Stepping out into the snow again, she stopped.

"Sorry." He said, "Just wanted some peace and quiet for a few minutes."

It was Eliás. His reddish-brown hair like the only splodge of colour in the white night. As always, he was perfectly presented. It was like he thought that one false step, one hair out of place would depose him as a High Priest. One look at him and you could tell his IQ was off the charts. You could almost see the neurones in his brain flashing as he came to a conclusion at three times the speed of the next best person. Lenobia didn't blush. It wasn't something she wasted her time doing and even if she could, the cold had frozen her cheeks almost solid. She felt a butterfly in her stomach. Not butterflies plural, butterfly singular. A tiny, shrinking feeling, the kind she felt before riding in an important competition. She wasn't a nervous person, but she still felt that butterfly. It had always been a good thing, Lenobia had always taught her older students that if you're not a little bit nervous it means you don't care, you don't appreciate what could go wrong, no matter how accomplished a rider you are, a bird in a hedge, a spectator rattling a crisp-packet, a shadow, and your marks could plummet, your penalties soar sky-high. It meant you didn't feel the passion of the sport. She wasn't about to go in front of an international dressage judge, or tackle a four star cross-country course, but it felt like that. The similarities between them were so uncanny, she knew he had the potential to be a very good friend. The other potential, she had pushed to the back of her mind. Not everything revolved solely around romantic relationships. As soon as the possibility entered her mind, she dismissed it. They both had responsibilities which tied them down, on different continents with the Atlantic Ocean in between, no less. Feeling such a connection with someone that she was actually considering this possibility at all was such a rare occurrence that it bothered her. The strange curiosity that wondered, what it was like to touch him, to kiss him, even make love to him, was likewise banished.

"So you followed me?"

He shrugged. "Yes."

"Alright, well I just came out to change a poultice." She said, walking into the second block of stables, "All this snow means we can't turn them out, and some of them are going a bit loopy kept in." She stopped at a stable, picked up the headcollar and leadrope and undid the bolts on the door. "This one managed to stand on his own feet." She said, pointing to the stable bandages on its front legs. Tying the horse to the string on the tie-ring, she removed the right bandage, revealing beneath a vetwrap bandage, which she peeled off, and revealed a small cut. Not deep, but oozing pus. "It got a bit infected. The poultice draws out all the muck."

As she changed the poultice, he let the horse lick the palm of his glove. "I've missed you."

She looked up. "You have?"

"You're still the same person I met in San Clemente. You're the same person I saw in 1944. You haven't changed."

"You think so?" she said, getting up and untying the horse, "I don't know." She paused for a moment, "Eliás, when you were Marked, did you think that you had been saved?"

"Maybe." He said, "Maybe not. Why?"

"I hear stories of people like Zoey Redbird and Damien Maslin who agree that Nyx did save them from their human lives." She said, leaning against the stable door next to him, "I would love to be able to say that that was the case with me."

"You weren't?"

She shook her head. "At the time I rather felt my life had been destroyed. I wanted to ride for Germany, etc... All that went out the window. I went into the army, well, it meant I could stay closer to my father for one, we were pretty close. And, I think the other reason I did it, was because I wanted respect for what I was. From the best themselves. When you go into that atmosphere, suddenly it becomes a ladder for status. I injured several other men because they thought I was a joke, or a toy, or both. I used to have to listen to them at night after lights out talking about their sexual conquests. Boys will be boys, but there are some limits to common decency." She bit her lip, "Don't get me wrong. I got a lot out of being in the army, if I were to leave Tulsa now I'd think about going back. But, for that reason, I swore I'd never be like the wives or mistresses of those men. I wasn't going to be a tool for someone else's pleasure. The respect disintegrates. Being a vampyre has never been a plus as far as any of that is concerned."

"You hid in the world you wanted to be a part of." She was silent. "I know." He said, "I did too."

"You did?"

He nodded. "I wanted respect, for what I was. I didn't want it for my affinity, I wanted it for my mind. Which was, a long time ago, the only part of me I considered to have any worth. So when I Changed, I went to study Chemistry. I was hopeless at Drama, the Arts, I wanted to be a scientist. I didn't want to be someone's warrior. Not that I dislike the cause, but I wanted something more, I didn't want to stop there. I didn't integrate into the vampyre world, I went back to the human one like you. How I got where I am now is anyone's guess."

"And when you become set in your ways, that's it."

He smiled. "You're very inspirational, you know that?"

She smiled back. "So are you."

"Truth be told..." he said, "Back then, I was going to ask if you wanted to grab a coffee sometime, but I thought you might break my nose..."

She chuckled. "Depends if you were intending on spilling it on me again."

"Say I was." He said, "What would you say?"

She nodded comically. "I would break your nose." She laughed again, "But, I've often wondered what would have happened if you had."

"Spilled coffee on you?" she chuckled as he gave a small smirk. "Well..." he said, turning to face her. He tilted her chin up with a hand before leaning down and kissing her softly. Lenobia was sure that as they stood there, she was getting warmer, and that she could feel sparks whenever he touched her, even through clothes and gloves. Their kiss kept getting deeper, fiercer, her arms wrapped themselves around him, one around his waist, the other over his back so she could hold his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tight to him. She felt completely swamped by his embrace. He was the first person, ever, to make her feel delicate, small, that he might actually protect her instead of her having to protect herself. His lips wandered to her neck, where he nipped her sharply and sucked on the blood that trickled over them. Sighs and moans escaped from both of them freely. "Nmmm... Not out here..." she breathed, continuing in between to kiss him as hard as she could, "It's too cold..."

Ah, earlier she had been serious about the sparks, and her conviction was reassured when the sparks became an actual shock.

They broke apart, both breathless, but didn't let go of one another.

"Sorry..." he said, forcing his affinity back, "Sorry..."

"Is that going to be a problem?"

"I hope not..."

Lenobia heard a stamping in the otherwise quiet stable block. "Well, not as much of a problem as that."

It was Persephone. Kicking at her stable door, she was doing the phlegm-imposture stance, where the horse pokes its nose in the air and turns its top lip up.

Eliás tilted his head to the side. "Is that horse vetting me for suitability?"

"Yep."

He squinted. "It's mocking me."

"It is."

"Does it approve?"

"No." She said, holding back more laughs, "She knows it's hopeless." Lenobia's laughing fades into the frozen air, and she held onto him tighter, leaning her head beneath his chin, "We live on opposite sides of the world, Eliás." She said, "If it ever came to that, both of us have to stay where we are. You can't leave Prague and I can't leave Tulsa. And even if I could I can't speak Czech."

"Dragon and Anastasia couldn't even understand each other at first."

"They didn't have to shout it over the Atlantic Ocean." She said, making him snort, "How long are you here for?"

He sounded sad. "Three days."

"Three days..." she trailed away into nothing. "Stay with me."

"Couldn't keep me away." He said pertly, "No matter what else I am, I'm still male." He held her tightly for a moment, "I might even be straight."

She burst out laughing. "We shall see. Life is what you make it."

"And love?" he asked with a grin on his face, "Is love what you make it?"

"Love, High Priest, is definitely what you make it."

* * *

_**Und er kennt seine Grenzen**_

_**Und geht trotzdem zu weit**_

_**Kein Glück in der Ferne**_

_**Nachdem er nicht greift**_

_**Seine Macht ist sein Glaube**_

_**Um nichts kämpft er mehr**_

_**Und das immer und immer wieder**_

_**Deswegen ist er ein Krieger**_

_**Das ist ein Aufruf**_

_**Das hier geht an alle Krieger**_

_**An alle Krieger**_

_**Das ist ein Aufruf**_

_**Und dieser Aufruf geht an alle Krieger des Lichts**_

_**An alle Krieger des Lichts**_

_**Das hier geht an alle Krieger des Lichts**_

_**~ German "Krieger des Lichts" by Silbermond**_

* * *

_And he knows his boundaries,_

_And still goes too far anyway,_

_No happiness far away,_

_For which he won't reach,_

_His strength is his faith,_

_He fights for nothing more,_

_He will again and again,_

_That's why he's a fighter. _

_This is a calling._

_And this is to all the fighters._

_To all the fighters._

_This is a calling,_

_And this calling goes,_

_To all the white knights_

_To all the white knights_

_This is to all the white knights._

_~ English "White Knights" by Silbermond_

* * *

**R&R! Over and out.**


End file.
